Gmail on Mac Mail on 2 Computers?

Question

So I set up Gmail accounts for my wife and for me through Mac Mail no problem. We got and sent Emails just fine. This was done on my Macbook. I wanted to set up her iMac to do the same. So I punched in all the same numbers and configurations, but it doesn't quite seem to be working right. The Gmail messages that were in the inboxes on the Macbook are not in the Inbox on the iMac.
I thought this would work since it does with .Mac mail. Whatever I do on my Macbook shows up on my iMac with that.
Solutions or Suggestions?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I thought this would work since it does with .Mac mail.
But .Mac uses IMAP, which is a protocol that was invented precisely to allow this. You access Gmail in Mail through POP, which is an entirely different protocol and doesn’t work the same way. Moreover, Gmail POP access in particular doesn’t even work as a normal POP mail server would. Here are some of its idiosyncrasies:
1. Messages downloaded by any conventional POP mail client are marked as downloaded at the server (but not as read on the web), and no longer available to either the same or any other POP mail client.
2. To make already downloaded Gmail messages available for POP access again, you must log into your Gmail account with a web browser and re-enable POP downloading for all your messages, which will cause everything (and I mean everything) still there to be downloaded again.
3. Any Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Remove copy from server settings have absolutely no effect on the messages stored on Gmail’s server. The reason is that, after being downloaded, those messages are no longer available to any mail client, not even to the same client that has just downloaded them, not even for deleting them or checking whether they are still there.
4. Messages created and sent using the web interface will be downloaded by your POP mail client as if they were incoming messages. You can set up a rule in Mail to automatically route those messages to the appropriate Sent mailbox (or to any other mailbox for that matter) if that's what you want. Although this may seem weird, it's good because it allows archiving all messages locally in Mail, regardless of how they were sent -- as long as you don't access the same Gmail account with more than one POP mail client, that is.
5. Messages created and sent using a POP mail client such as Mail are also treated as if they were incoming messages for POP purposes, just as in 4. What prevents them from being downloaded is that Gmail marks them as already downloaded immediately. They would, however, be downloaded if Gmail settings were changed as described in 2 above.
6. As a particular case of 5, messages sent to yourself will appear in your Inbox on the web, but cannot be downloaded by either the same or any other POP mail client.