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I was having the exact same problem. I think I have fixed it now - the 2 things I did were to disable POP in the gmail settings (previously both IMAP and POP were enabled) and also in Mail, set the account to "Don't keep copies of any messages" (in the advanced panel of the account settings). It crashed a few times while I was trying to change that setting but eventually it let me. My gmail account is around 800 MB so maybe it was trying to download all of those and that's what was breaking it.
 
Well, i'm still having issues with both of my accounts all day today. Even with the steps i took last night that I posted previously in this thread which I thought fixed it I'm still having a lot of trouble.

I really don't know what to make of all this.
 
I am not sure about the sent mail question as I am not at home to check my account. But, with pure POP, you can set-up GMail to delete the email once it is downloaded to your PC. POP is best for people who generally use a single computer to view his/her email or get annoyed seeing the same email every time to check their email.

So, I am not sure about your specific use case, but I am starting to believe that POP is broken at the moment.

I hate to be condescending, Brian, but you're being just as bad as the people you complain about for recommending IMAP over POP. Let's get this straight, POP is never "best" as you put it for anyone. IMAP does everything that POP does, plus more.

POP was a protocol intended for people to be able to download messages from their email server and then delete them from the server, so the only remaining copy was on the person's computer. The reason for doing this was that it meant the server needn't receive requests from the user every time they read an email, and also it means the server can have a very tiny storage for that person's emails because it only ever had to remember the contents of the undownloaded emails. All emails, after being downloaded, get deleted on the server end.

IMAP is an extension of this, meaning that all the messages always stay on the server. If you then reply to the email, the server is informed and updates a flag on the message as appropriate. This means that when you go back to the web interface, you can see that the message has been replied to. If you do use more than one computer, a change on any of them updates all of them to be in sync. If you used POP for more than one computer, they would all work, but the messages for your email would be distributed between your computers since if one downloads the messages and deletes from the server, then another cannot see that message any longer.

The reason for switching to IMAP with GMail is that the GMail servers (under normal circumstances) can handle all these requests from the users without issue and you don't need to delete emails (unless you want to) because GMail offer so much space.

Rant over ... the issue with the GMail not working in Snow Leopard is (I'm pretty sure) to do with the extra load on the GMail servers these past few days. If everyone who's installed Snow Leopard starts using GMail in their freshly installed Mail App, then they will begin using IMAP because of the automatic setup for them. This puts extra strain on the servers, and initiates a download of several gigs of emails as the Mail app syncs with the servers.

The reason I'm 95% sure it's not the Mail app itself is that the web interface for GMail is also acting up, indicating it is a server side issue. I think all the issues will rectify themselves in a while and any tinkering is completely pointless because it's not on your end. Just be patient!!
 
I just got SL yesterday. I liked how Mail setup my gmail account automatically. First the program took a couple hours to download my old messages, and it seemed to be working okay, but now I regularly have the error symbol (exclamation mark) next to my inbox, and it doesn't seem to be getting new emails in a very timely manner. Sometimes quitting mail and opening it again frees it up and new mail comes through, but shortly thereafter, it gets blocked again. And then at the same time, if I try accessing my gmail through the web, it sometimes gives me a Server Error. At first I assumed it was more of what we were seeing yesterday afternoon, but I haven't seen any more recent news articles talking about a second widespread gmail outage today, so I'm starting to feel its only my account, and that maybe the Mail.app activity (downloading several gigs of old messages) has caused problems with my account.

Anybody else having Server Errors with gmail today??
 
POP and IMAP mixed up in Mail 4.0

995 is the gmail port for POP. 993 is the gmail port for IMAP. That is stated in the gmail help docs online. So I'm not sure if you accomplished anything or not...

My gmail is working fine With POP, so i accomplished what i expected. The thing is that, while triying to set up a POP account, Mail 4.0 left the 993 port, so i checked Gmail's documentation and changed it to 995.

BTW, if you try to set up a Gmail account, there's a "create button", and then it will be set up as Imap, but, if you hold the Option key, it will allow you to "continue" and then have more options, like pop and Exchange.

This post almost helped me, so i just comment what worked and hope it helps anyone.

Greetings from Chile
 
My gmail is working fine With POP, so i accomplished what i expected. The thing is that, while triying to set up a POP account, Mail 4.0 left the 993 port, so i checked Gmail's documentation and changed it to 995.

BTW, if you try to set up a Gmail account, there's a "create button", and then it will be set up as Imap, but, if you hold the Option key, it will allow you to "continue" and then have more options, like pop and Exchange.

This post almost helped me, so i just comment what worked and hope it helps anyone.

Greetings from Chile

thanks for help.. worked for me using pop.. :)
 
IMAP vs. POP (OT)

While we're talking about it, I have a question about POP vs. IMAP. With IMAP (specifically using GMail/iMail) do you have to have an internet connection to read your email that is on your local laptop? I like to download and then read/reply to messages, sometimes offline.

I had a MSN account (HTML? Something like that) where I HAD to be connected to the internet to read a message, even though the header was in my mailbox on my laptop. I could not even delete the header from Outlook without a connection to the server. Very annoying. If this is the case with iMail/Gmail using IMAP I will stick with POP.

Thanks in advance.
 
...do you have to have an internet connection to read your email that is on your local laptop?...

No, you can read mail that was already synced without being connected... but obviously no updates will be made until the connection has been re-established.

Think about it this way... mail.app is simply a viewer/composer for your gmail account (using imap)... meaning, whatever you do in mail.app, happens on the server as well... delete a message in mail.app, it moves to the trash in mail.app AND it's in the trash on the gmail web interface as well.

It's really the only way to do it if you check email from multiple devices (e.g. desktop, lapper, iPhone, web)...
 
No, you can read mail that was already synced without being connected... but obviously no updates will be made until the connection has been re-established.

This is true IF you have your mail client set to download the entire message.

Most IMAP clients have a few different settings, like one to just download the subject/from data so that you only download the messages you click on to read.

I believe Mail.app downloads the entire message by default, but you can check in the advanced section of an account in the preferences.
 
My gmail is working fine With POP, so i accomplished what i expected. The thing is that, while triying to set up a POP account, Mail 4.0 left the 993 port, so i checked Gmail's documentation and changed it to 995.

BTW, if you try to set up a Gmail account, there's a "create button", and then it will be set up as Imap, but, if you hold the Option key, it will allow you to "continue" and then have more options, like pop and Exchange.

This post almost helped me, so i just comment what worked and hope it helps anyone.

Greetings from Chile

That's actually a really nice trick with the option key. Thanks for that!! I was wondering what you'd do if you didn't want it automatically set to IMAP and just wanted a plain old manual setup and now I know!!
 
While we're talking about it, I have a question about POP vs. IMAP. With IMAP (specifically using GMail/iMail) do you have to have an internet connection to read your email that is on your local laptop? I like to download and then read/reply to messages, sometimes offline.

I had a MSN account (HTML? Something like that) where I HAD to be connected to the internet to read a message, even though the header was in my mailbox on my laptop. I could not even delete the header from Outlook without a connection to the server. Very annoying. If this is the case with iMail/Gmail using IMAP I will stick with POP.

Thanks in advance.

Others have already said it, but I will reiterate so you feel more confident. IMAP is basically POP on crack. You can download the emails like normal, they stay on your computer like normal, but unlike POP, they also stay on the server and if you do something like move an email to a new folder or reply, as soon as you have access to the internet, the changes are replicated on the server. And assuming you have a second machine on IMAP, it too will replicate the changes. Everything always stays in sync!!

But you can always read all your old emails offline just like POP.
 
so back to the actual issue

i did a clean install of SL - and have a google apps acct on my personal domain - when i reinstalled SL and set up the acct (via mobileme sync) it seemed to work just fine - redownloaded all the messages etc - 12 hours later i had a "bandwidth exceeded error" coming from mail and disabling imap on all my other devices - please note that the outgoing smtp server never went down and ive always been able to send even while imap was giving me issues - web portal for this works just fine - it was down last week when google had the outage but outside of that it works perfectly.

Problem is that everytime i launch mail on SL and keep it open for 24-48 hours it causes this same error to occur - ive spoke to google apps support and they say theyve had a very FEW cases of this and are looking into it and will get back to me - in the mean time - i have been callin in and theyve been resetting my bandwidth limit manually while im on the phone with them

gmail settings: pop disables, imap enabled

is anyone else having these issues? any help would be very greatly appreciated

thank you much
 
Snow Leopard is a sluggish piece of crap

My apple email does not work anymore; my computer (a brand new MacBook Pro) is significantly slower and the spinning rainbow is constant. Even my screen scrolling is like a snail now. What a scam even if it was just $29. How do I get this thing off my OS?
 
My apple email does not work anymore; my computer (a brand new MacBook Pro) is significantly slower and the spinning rainbow is constant. Even my screen scrolling is like a snail now. What a scam even if it was just $29. How do I get this thing off my OS?


best doing an erase and install with your leopard disk will wipe all traces of snowy!!
 
My apple email does not work anymore; my computer (a brand new MacBook Pro) is significantly slower and the spinning rainbow is constant. Even my screen scrolling is like a snail now. What a scam even if it was just $29. How do I get this thing off my OS?

Seriously? You're too funny!! I know what's happened ... you've done a straight upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard and along with it you dragged in all the sludge that's built up on your system over time. Snow Leopard is faster than Leopard when it's configured correctly. My suggestion is that you follow instructions from the disc on how to install Snow Leopard whilst also wiping your hard drive. I guarantee you will see vast performance improvements!
 
so back to the actual issue

i did a clean install of SL - and have a google apps acct on my personal domain - when i reinstalled SL and set up the acct (via mobileme sync) it seemed to work just fine - redownloaded all the messages etc - 12 hours later i had a "bandwidth exceeded error" coming from mail and disabling imap on all my other devices - please note that the outgoing smtp server never went down and ive always been able to send even while imap was giving me issues - web portal for this works just fine - it was down last week when google had the outage but outside of that it works perfectly.

Problem is that everytime i launch mail on SL and keep it open for 24-48 hours it causes this same error to occur - ive spoke to google apps support and they say theyve had a very FEW cases of this and are looking into it and will get back to me - in the mean time - i have been callin in and theyve been resetting my bandwidth limit manually while im on the phone with them

gmail settings: pop disables, imap enabled

is anyone else having these issues? any help would be very greatly appreciated

thank you much

No I've not had that issue. No bandwidth problems .. just severely slow interaction between Mail on SL and GMail's servers. I have no issues at all now. I assume the same is true for others as people only post on forums when they have an issue and rarely come back to say it's all working now.

I return to my previous prediction, that it was the GMail servers and not the Mail app which was at fault. Funny that it all cleared up without any updates to the Mail app ;)
 
i have the same problem.
spinning ball and 2500 mails downloaded.
the curious thing is that i actualy have 2 gmail accounts and just one isn't working properly. they are both 100% identical in terms of settings.
snow leopard worked fine until yesterday when the mail trouble started.
 
I'm having Gmail problems myself. For a few days I have not been able to download new messages, today I learn that I have no more hard disk space. Yesterday there was nearly 30 gigs free. I run Disk Inventory X and find out that every four to six minutes, 54.7 MB of recovered messages get downloaded to my computer. I'm not able to receive new messages at all. Just leaving this here for thoughts or suggestions...
 
got it working after watching it endlessly do nothing

I did a combination of things that i read all over and now it works - i moved my /library/mail/imap gmail folder to the desktop then it worked.

also i disabled the downloading of attachments in the mail settings but i don't think that mattered as much as moving the whole folder to the desktop.

hope this helps
 
Same problem. My Gmail is not downloading mail from the server in Mail. I could care less what your opinion of POP vs imap is, lets find a solution to getting it working in SL. Worked fine in 10.5, now with 10.6 its not. Nothing was changed to the settings.
 
Well, it's good to know that i am not alone in experiencing this problem... I spent 4 hrs trying to delete, re-create account on my mail application, and i have tried everything i found on the web, before discovering this forum.

So i want to use, and excuse me if i am not using the correct lingo, an IMAP account. when i type in "imap.google.com", i get an error that server can not be reached.. I can send e-mail from my mail application, using the SMTP setting, specified everywhere on the web, but i can't get to download any e-mail to my inbox. Furthermore, i get an exclamation mark next to my inbox.

Can anyone advice on how to solve this issue - even if the solution is: wait for a week or so, and google or apple will fix the issue. I personally don't want to spend anymore time on this stupid bug... Everything worked great on Leopard, just not Snow Leopard!!!

Thank you
 
So i want to use, and excuse me if i am not using the correct lingo, an IMAP account. when i type in "imap.google.com", i get an error that server can not be reached.. I can send e-mail from my mail application, using the SMTP setting, specified everywhere on the web, but i can't get to download any e-mail to my inbox. Furthermore, i get an exclamation mark next to my inbox.

Can anyone advice on how to solve this issue - even if the solution is: wait for a week or so, and google or apple will fix the issue. I personally don't want to spend anymore time on this stupid bug... Everything worked great on Leopard, just not Snow Leopard!!!

Thank you

I have the same problem as you. Can send from imap but cant get incoming. And have the ! beside the mailbox.
 
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