Trying to understand IMAP email

[max2]

Can anyone tell me why I have these different folders on each my email accounts? How do I get rid of them so all 3 are the same ?

This is with IMAP not POP3.
[doublepost=1500452815][/doublepost]Ok I want it to look like my first email account and get rid of the folders circled below.

Is that possible?

 

[eyoungren]

Maybe if I explain it a bit…

With IMAP your email messages and their attachments are stored on the provider's servers. With POP everything is stored locally (i.e., Local Folders).

So, with POP it's possible to have one set of folders because all your email downloads to your computer.

With IMAP, if you tell the program to use local folders that's possible, but you can't consolidate the Inbox. You get one set of folders for each email account you add that's IMAP. Removing all the inboxes would mean you'd be removing the Inbox on your provider's server and that's not going to happen.

 

[SoggyCheese]

On Gmail you tag the emails on the IMAP server with the folder name and your mail client should then display the local copy in the relevant folder. By dragging a mail to a folder in your client the IMAP tag ought to be added automatically back on the server. I'm not sure if that's in the spec for IMAP, but I'll be surprised if it's Gmail only.