Mail.app question about IMAP

[smirk]

Hey everyone,

I've used Gmail for years via web browser, but just now thought it'd be nice to also access it through Apple's Mail program (this is on Yosemite). I kind of thought it would just load in the most recent mail headers like the iPhone does, but it appears to be loading all messages and all message data, including attachments. After loading all Gmail messages, the IMAP folder on disk is 4 GB in size.

Is this how Mail.app treats IMAP? Is there any setting to tell it not to download any mail until it's needed? Not looking forward to all that gmail data stored locally, but the convenience of accessing Gmail within Mail.app is nice.

Thanks!

 

[smitt]

Back in the day you could grab headers only, but a few OS X versions ago the option was unfortunately removed from Apple Mail. Alternatively, there is an option to limit the number of messages downloaded to 1,000 within Google's settings.
1. Login to mail.google.com
2. Click the gear and select Settings
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
4. Modify Folder Size Limits

Also turn off automatically download attachments to help with the bandwidth:
Mail Preferences>Accounts>Advanced> uncheck "Automatically download attachments."

 

[smirk]

That's great, thank you!

 

[smitt]

You are welcome.
Caution: Be careful when deleting the already downloaded Gmail messages from within Apple Mail. Depending on your current settings, deleting an email from your computer will also delete it from the Google mail server.
Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors

It may be best to trash the Gmail account in Apple Mail, login to Google and modify the Folder Size setting, and then recreate the account in Apple Mail to start fresh.

There are also alternative email clients available that may offer the feature you desire. A couple articles:
Macworld - Ditch Mavericks's Mail: Other email apps you can try
iMore - Best email clients for Mac: Airmail, Postbox, Inky, and more!

 

[smirk]

Thanks again.

You know, I ended up giving up and disabling Gmail in Mail.app. The settings are configured per Gmail's help section's instructions, but it just isn't working right. I delete a message in my client but it still shows up in the inbox in webmail. Oh well.