Mail 5 — sane settings for GMail?

[goomba]

I switched back from Sparrow to Lion Mail because I figured the new version would would fix compatibility with GMail to be at least as good as in the iPad client. Sadly, GMail on Mail 5 is still a mess. IMAP Folders show up in the sidebar with duplicate messages in them, sent mail and drafts do not propagate properly between devices, there is no clear distinction between archive/delete, etc. The "recommended settings" from Google do little to help.

Has anyone played with Mail 5 enough to come up with a decent set of rules for GMail? I just want to make the cruft go away and get my inbox and special folders (sent, drafts, etc.) to look and work as they do on the iPad.

Thanks

 

[Lukas Prime]

I'd be curious to find this out...

I'm thinking about switching back from Sparrow, but Mail has burned me before, I'm wondering if it's worth it.

I really don't want Mail to download 20GB of gmail messages so I can search through them. I really wish it worked like the iPad app so you could keep perhaps the latest 1000 messages but 'continue search on server' when the need arises...

 

[bjett92]

Still is nowhere near as good as the iPad app. I don't know how apple got it right on my iOS app but not on the Mac.

 

[waynep]

It's working fine for me. I followed some setup instruction for Mail when I was on Snow Leopard. I think these were the instructions:

http://email.about.com/od/macosxmailtips/qt/et_gmailosxmail.htm

I upgraded to Lion today and it seems Mail (new Lion version) has kept the configuration and it's working fine. In fact it's working well enough that I uninstalled Sparrow Lite.

 

[eonaeon]

I'm giving Mail another go, after having not liked it in any of the previous OS X releases, purely for Gmail IMAP handling.

Seems to be working ok now, and it downloaded/cached all my messages quite well.

However, there is one weird issue I'd like to resolve.

Gmail automatically stores a copy of sent messages in the "Sent Mail" label.

In general when setting up an Application with Gmail IMAP you uncheck the box about "storing sent items on the server", because Gmail handles this automatically for you.

However, by unchecking this option, Mail.app will store sent items in a folder within Mail. It's not the end of the world, but at the moment what happens when I send an email is:

Message gets saved in "Sent Mail" label within Gmail.
Message gets saved in "Sent" folder within Mail.app

I have no need/desire to keep this "Sent" folder within the Mail.app, however it doesn't appear there is a combination of settings you can choose to stop mail being stored there.

 

[meerkat35]

Not a problem on my Macs.

 

[goomba]

I tried this recent setup from Macworld and so far things are looking pretty good:

http://www.macworld.com/article/157846/2011/03/mailgmail.html

It's still not as smooth as iOS but I guess that just isn't going to happen until Google/Apple bring Exchange sync to the desktop client.

 

[goomba]

In general when setting up an Application with Gmail IMAP you uncheck the box about "storing sent items on the server", because Gmail handles this automatically for you.

I've found it best to disregard Google's advice and check that option off anyway. It stops Mail from making its own local Sent folder and the sent items will still go to the right place in the web interface. Do the same thing for Drafts and you should stop seeing redundant local folders.