Have Mail NOT download my IMAP messages?

[cubsfan334]

Hi,

I have my college email account (exchange) set up with the Mail app. This works perfectly.

However, I also have a gmail. I'd like to use IMAP, but not have Mail download all the messages in my gmail (there are like 20,000). Basically, I don't care about working offline -- I'd like to use Mail to directly manipulate the servers on gmail.

Is this possible?

 

[miles01110]

Nope. That's not how IMAP works. Messages in your Inbox on your GMail account will be synced.

 

[Weaselboy]

Go to this screen in GMail settings and select how many messages you want to limit IMAP to in each folder. Also, in IMAP settings tell GMail not to display/sync the "All Mail" folder to IMAP, as that is a duplicate of your inbox and other folders and will double to DL and storage space used my OS X Mail app.

 

[Persifleur]

In Mail Preferences, Accounts -> <select your GMail account> -> Advanced has an option for "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing:" which you should be able to set to "Don't keep copies of any messages".