Apple Mail vs. Gmail IMAP disagreeing counts

A friend has two iMacs (10.6.5), iPad & iPhone (iOS 4.2) recently switched to gmail for his primary email service.
The problem is that not all the devices “see” the same Sent, Drafts and Trash mailbox.
Working with other IMAP services, I never see issues like this, so I know this is a gmail specific issue - there’s a disconnect between the way Gmail organizes it’s IMAP mailboxes vs. the way the Apple Mail does.
For instance, when you configure Apple Mail for a gmail IMAP account, it assumes your Sent mailbox will be called “Sent Messages”. And on the gmail web side, a Label always gets created called “Sent Messages”. My experience is that without any intervention, when you send email, it shows up in Apple Mail in the proper “Sent” mailbox, but in gmail it shows up in “Sent Messages”, NOT gmail’s Sent mailbox.
For some reason, with a gmail account, the old trick of Mailboxes > Use this Mailbox for doesn’t work because the options are grayed out.
So, how I’ve improved this situation is to open up PropertyListEditor and edit com.apple.mail.plist. There is a key called ‘MailAccounts’ under which is an “item” representing the Gmail account. Underneath, there’s an entry for ‘SentMessagesMailboxName’. I’ve tried changing this to both “Sent Mail” or “[Gmail]/Sent Mail” and both work in the sense that any email sent from Apple Mail ends up in gmail’s Sent mailbox, and NOT in “Sent Messages”
Here’s where the mystery deepens.
In my friend’s situation, when I do this, when path is set to [Gmail]/Sent Mail, I see two Sent mailboxes
in Apple Mail, I see 886 messages in the Sent under ‘Mailboxes’, and 823 in ‘Sent Mail’ under GMAIL section
in gmail, the ‘Sent Mail’ mailbox has 651 items and there exists a “[Imap]/Sent Mail” mailbox which has 609 items
When I edit the plist and change the path with PropertyListEditor to just “Sent Mail”, Apple Mail only shows one Sent mailbox with 823 messages items, but is missing the message sent within the past couple days.
Any ideas how to make sense of this?

No real answer to your problem, but I can confirm the problem exists...I've been chasing it forever. Another issue (that is equally as perplexing) is that no matter how you configure deleted message behavior in Apple Mail, when you delete a message it NEVER shows up in the Gmail TRASH folder. If someone would just create a definitive guide for using Gmail and Apple Mail they could probably sell it.

Similar Messages

Apple Mail and Gmail IMAP

With the iPhone coming to Verizon soon, I'd like to move back to Apple Mail from Gmail, but still want to keep Gmail as my source because my domain is setup with Google Apps but mostly because of the unparalleled spam filtering Gmail has. My problem is that even though I've configured Apple Mail exactly as Google recommends (shown below), I still have some issues.
From the Mail menu, click Preferences > *Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors*
Drafts:
Store draft messages on the server > *do NOT check*
Sent:
Store sent messages on the server > *do NOT check*
Junk:
Store junk messages on the server > checked
Delete junk messages when > Never
Trash:
Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox > *do NOT check*
Store deleted messages on the server > *do NOT check*
I want to have true IMAP functionality here, but I'm not getting it. Sent messages work fine...if I send a message, it shows up in Apple Mail in the Sent folder and when I go to Gmail it is also in the Sent folder. BUT...when I delete a message in Apple Mail it goes to the Gmail *All Mail* folder (in Apple Mail and Gmail) and never shows up in the Gmail Trash on either Apple Mail or Gmail...where it should. I've tried changing the settings under *Apple Mail > Trash* but that doesn't fix the problem.
I realize some of you might be inclined to say "It's Google problem...ask there" but I'm hoping a Gmail user here might have had this same issue before. Even as a dedicated Apple person for many years, I still can't give up Gmail and their spam filtering that Apple Mail can't come close to. Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks, Andy. I should have posted a closure statement on this thread as I finally figured everything out. The most frustrating thing is Google's own advice at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78892# couldn't further from correct. After many hours of experimenting with settings, I finally came up with the correct ones. In fact, I'm in the process of writing an article about it since there is simply no definitive guidance on the web that I've been able to find in the time I've searched.
Your comments are on target...everything on the *Behaviors Tab* needs to be checked (excepts Notes) and the *Delete when* settings must be set to Never. But there are a few other things that must be done, including some changes on Gmail Settings before Mail and Gmail will be perfectly synchronous. I'll post the entire solution on this forum when I finish the graphics.

RSS feeds between Apple Mail and Gmail

I was wondering if this is possible or if this even exists.
I am subscribed to RSS feeds in Apple Mail which I love reading on my iMac. But when I'm at the office on a Windows machine I can only read my RSS feeds through Gmail. It's hard to keep track of what I haven't read and have read.
Is there a way to sync which RSS reeds which are read/unread with Apple Mail and Gmail?

Thanks, Andy. I should have posted a closure statement on this thread as I finally figured everything out. The most frustrating thing is Google's own advice at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78892# couldn't further from correct. After many hours of experimenting with settings, I finally came up with the correct ones. In fact, I'm in the process of writing an article about it since there is simply no definitive guidance on the web that I've been able to find in the time I've searched.
Your comments are on target...everything on the *Behaviors Tab* needs to be checked (excepts Notes) and the *Delete when* settings must be set to Never. But there are a few other things that must be done, including some changes on Gmail Settings before Mail and Gmail will be perfectly synchronous. I'll post the entire solution on this forum when I finish the graphics.

I'm struggling to view apple mail in gmail....

I continue to get "Connection refused" message when I try to add my apple mail account to gmail. Can somebody explain how to add apple mail into gmail?

Hi Farhad:
I've cc'd our site administrator. This looks like a higher -level issue than what I can assist with.
moniquevdb-Oracle Brianw-Oracle Please note.
Cheers,
LKR

Apple Mail, iPad & iPhone mail with GMail imap

Hi,
I'm using a MacBook Pro 13", a iPad 4 (actual retina) and an iPhone 4.
I have issues using apple mail with my Gmail imap account :
Only the inbox seem to be fully compatible with every device I use, but the outbox, for example, seem not to be the same box on all device.
when I send a mail from my MacBook, the sended mail doesn't appear in the Mail's classical outbox but in a sub-box of Gmail box on the bottom, and I can't find any trace of the mail on iPhone/iPad.
Is there anything I can do to make that I have the same Inbox, Outbox, Draft, Spam and Trash boxes in all my device and server.
I tryied with iCloud mail account and this works perfectly !!
If it's not possible, is it possible to set my icloud mail account to be with my own domain name as it is on my Gmail acount ?
thanks

On iOS, there is no local configuration for the Sent Mail. for Gmail, it automatically goes to the Sent Mail folder. But Sent Mail only shows up when you tap Gmail under the Account setings, not in Inboxes. For OSX, however, you may be able to configure a designated folder (that can be either on the local machine or on the account server). To be honest, I can't recall where that configuration is, and do not have the MBP in front of me. This article may help (or provide links to instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5361

GMAIL ON APPLE MAIL AND IPHONE - IMAP VS. POP

I used to have an email with my internet service provider. I switched to Verizon FiOs and needed to switch every website and contact to the new email. Its a pain. I decided to just get a Gmail account so I don't ever have to switch again.
Anyway, with the Cox account, I used to check my email on the iPhone or on my iMac. I could get an email, delete it, and then check my email on the computer hours later and it downloaded again (for editing word documents, etc.).
When I switched to Gmail, I configured Apple Mail by letting it automatically configure the account. On the iPhone, I used the Gmail automatic setup in Settings>Mail. I sent a couple of emails to the address to test it. Most all of them came to the iPhone but only some were there later on the iMac. I read online about the IMAP and POP settings but I don't really understand the differences or benefits.
Basically, in the end I want to be able to check my email on the go and delete them on my iPhone but later go home and check again to have them all there. Which settings do I need to have on the gmail server, the phone, and the computer to make this happen?
Also, is there any way to delete the annoying extra folders and "All Mail" system on the Gmail server and just use the inbox.
Thanks in advanced

Use "recent mode" on Gmail for both devices. That solves the problem. Only issue is that will cause all the emails of the past month to re-download to all your devices, so you'll end up re-deleting a huge pile of mail. But once that's done-with, all your devices can all access the mail fresh from now on.
Look for instructions in Gmail help. Basically it means adding the text "recent:" to your POP login info, as in recent:[email protected] instead of just [email protected]

Apple Mail Not Showing Inbox Unread Count on Dock after installing Mavericks

After installing Mavericks, my Apple Mail (connected to my work's Gmail account) stopped showing the Inbox's unread count on the dock. I switched it to "all mailboxes" to see if that would make a difference, and the dock shows 7 unread emails when there are actually none. When I switch it back to "Inbox" unread counts, it shows nothing. I've waited 15 minutes after receiving an email to see if it will show an unread message in the dock, but it does not. Does anyone have a fix for this?
Thank you!

Quit your mail entirely, then in terminal do:
mv ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope* ~/Desktop
This moves all your "Envelope Index*" files to your desktop. An alternative is deleting the files, but this allows you to keep them as a temporary back-up (you can delete them at-will later). Also, you can move the files from Finder instead of Terminal, if you prefer.
After the files have been moved, re-open Mail
This should re-load all your email messages, updating/restoring the count
While this works, it does not explain the reason the count goes missing, nor does it ensure that the count won't go missing again in the future, but at least it's a temporary workaround.

Problem with Apple Mail and GMail

Can anyone help me with the following problem. I use Apple Mail as my client and GMail iMap as my server. When I create mails I often get a problem (I think caused by the trackpad) where the mouse jumps and I seem to generate a spurious draft email. The result is that I have a mailbox called "All Mail" in the Mail sidebar which contains over 10,000 messages, even though I only have a few hundred real messages (inbox, sent and spam) and my drafts folder is empty. In this mailbox there are numerous versions of the same emails saved during the creation of the email, all slightly different. I just don't understand what is going on.

Hi There
For Gmail setup using apple mail use this guide
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13275
POP access on yahoo accounts is not free. A yahoo mail plus account is needed.
As far as I am aware Hotmail does not allow any POP access at all. I couldn't find any specific information on POP access in Hotmail's help site.
Hope this helps

Can't sync Apple Mail with Gmail and Yahoo

Hi all, I really hope you can help. I have e-mail accounts with Gmail and Yahoo, and I'd really like to set either or both of these up in Apple Mail, primarily so that it will be really quick and easy to send people photos from my iPhoto library.
I've put in the correct info and I've enabled POP and IMAP in my Gmail settings, but when I try and set up it just says "checking connection to server [email protected]" for ages and doesn't acheive anything. When I did somehow manage to set it up briefly, I tried sending a message and it just dissapeared when I pressed send, didn't appear in my sent mail either in Gmail or in Apple Mail, and was not delivered.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm really frustrated that something that should be so simple could be such a pain - setting up e-mail on my iPhone took seconds and works perfectly! Thanks,
Malinna

Hi Malinna,
Did you follow Google's instruction on how to setup Mail.app and GMail?
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81379

Mail 6: Gmail imap syncing erraticly

My IMAP Gmail account in Mail 6.6 (Mountain Lion) sometimes takes up to an hour to retrieve messages from Gmail. Otherwise it seems fine, but this is a pain and I haven't found this precise problem anywhere else in the many Gmail IMPA/Mac Mail problems. Any hints?

I have the same issue. The mail doesn't show up for several hours sometimes but the date and time on the email is correct. I have had people tell me it's gmail but thats not true because it doesn't experience this issue in other clients using IMAP. I love apple mail but because of this I had to stop using it. They are many other cases of this issue found online.

Why can't I automatically forward from Apple Mail to Gmail?

Why can I no longer automatically forward mail from Mac Mail to Gmail account automatically. This worked fine till a few days ago but no longer. I hadn't changed any settings. have asked about this in Gmail forum but no useful answers, I have now changed various setting but makes no difference. Most of the Gmail help is oriented to Mail 4.0, I have 3.6, so that doesn't help (can I upgrade, I have OS10.5.8), I uploaded MailUpdate but it would it wouldn't let me install).
Maybe there is a way via Mail Forward but that seems for forwarding _from_ webmail _to_ Apple Mail.
All help gratefully received.
Thank you,
Michael
Model Name:    iMac
Model Identifier:    PowerMac6,3
Processor Name:    PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Processor Speed:    1 GHz
Number Of CPUs:    1
L2 Cache (per CPU):    256 KB
Memory:    1.5 GB
Bus Speed:    167 MHz
Boot ROM Version:    4.7.8f1

I suppose Gmail is forwarding to Apple Mail but not v versa, hardly anything at all is landing in Gmail.
My Apple Mail is a POP account, but IMAP -enabled in Gmail if that makes sense, Gmail help says that's what you should do to forward from POP to Gmail.
I want to forward them to Gmail so I can read my POP mail on my PC at work, as I said this worked beautiflly since I started in Feb till last week, then stopped for no apparent reason... As alternative I use mail2web which is just about okay but very slow, no outbox, no spam or other filtering, keeps timing out.
Yes something is doubling up but not sure what...
In my Apple Mail I have two accounts, both POP, one my regular apple mail account, the other my Gmail account, but settings are different according to Gmail help but not sure if they are right any more..
thanks again

Duplicate Messages in Sent Folder--Apple mail and gmail

I recently started using apple mail for my two gmail accounts.
I have properly configured all folders (highlight "trash" from gmail and click use this mailbox for..)
since i have two gmail accounts, i did this for both of them.
i did a couple of test emails from my main gmail account. now, in my sent folder it's showing duplicates for what i've sent, one from my main gmail account, one from my second gmail account.
I've tried to uncheck the box where it saves messages on server in preferences, and that seemed to work. however, i checked on my iphone and my sent message showed up..not in my main gmail account sent mail, but in my secondary gmail account sent mail.
can this be fixed?

check out the settings here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78892#
specifically:
From the Mail menu, click Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors
Drafts:
Store draft messages on the server > do NOT check
Sent:
Store sent messages on the server > do NOT check
Junk:
Store junk messages on the server > checked
Delete junk messages when > Never
Trash:
Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox > do NOT check
Store deleted messages on the server > do NOT check

Cannot get apple mail and gmail to sync properly

I use apple mail for my gmail account. the messages dont seem to sync properly - eg i try to empty the trash and they pop back in there. i changed the settings to what google say to use but now it is downloading 13000 messages. I loged onto my online account to try and delete them from there but i cant find them
What can i do?

Not exactly sure why you cannot find them on the gmail server when logged directly into gmail unless it is due to the fact you set up the gmail preferences to make gmail act as a mail server which I think you have to do to use a mail client.
At any rate, check Mail.app's preferences, accounts, click the account in question, then the Advanced tab. If you check the checkbox "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message" then the mail won't be saved on gmail's pop server.

Apple mail and Gmail

Strugging through setting up Gmail in my Apple mail environment. I stumble across the set up gmail when adding an account. Can I start over, delete my gmail account in Apple mail, then re-add it? Then bring all my email folders (with their email) back to the new, set up gmail account?

Norman Duke wrote:
What happens to my ipad and iphone then? Di I need to delete gmail on those devices then re-add the accounts after I am set up on the Macbook?
They will not be affected, nothing to do with them.

Apple Mail and gmail bug when sending attachment?

Hi,
And now for my own Mail question. Wondering if others have run into this bug?
Mac OS 10.5 MacBook Pro.
There seems to be a bug when trying to send Mail with an attachment (via a gmail account).
Over and over, Mail just hangs there.
But it works when:
1. Using Mail, the same email can be sent when I Remove the attachment.
2. Skipping Mail, and using gmail itself, the email and attachment are sent within seconds.
2. Email with attachment can also be sent from another email service (such as Earthlink).
Only when I am using Apple Mail, sending via gmail, With an attachment, is there a hitch.
Thanks again for your attention,
- Ross

Perhaps this problem is confined to Mail 3.0 and later, and Leopard. I cannot send attachments using gmail as the smtp server. I can log in to my gmail account, download an attachment, and send, with no problem as Ross has experienced. I get an eternal hang when trying to send the same message with an attachment from Mail. Any solutions yet? Thanks!

Apple Mail vs. Gmail IMAP disagreeing counts

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for