How can I stop apple mail from autosaving drafts?

Question

Hello all,
I have finally got myself a new computer and been immersed in the "new" way- my old mac was a bit like a volkswagen beetle, old and cranky but very efficient.
This new interlaced madness is proving to be very confusing on many levels but here I will state one problem I am seeking a solution to:
Apple mail autosaves  a copy of my email reply drafts every 30 seconds in my apple mail draft folder. - This means many copies are saved!!!
How do I stop this?
The reason I ask this is for the following reasons:
1- If I don't send my reply after 30 seconds I have to manually delete the drafts.- I didn't know this until I was doing a little organising and have realised that I have quite a few drafts of the same message lying around in my google on mac (imap) "all mail" folder and these end up taking alot of space.
2- These then get transfered to my google mail "all mail" folder and end up taking up more space.
3- Manually deleting things from my google on mac "all mail" account is a pain in the *** because I need to delete it into the googletrash on mac and not any other deleting area. (unless I do it directly from gmail) I didn't know this until I had a read through google- the "all mail" archive is another pain in the ***.
I was deleting these messages from my mac "all mail" mailbox and they just magically reappeared into the same "all mail" mailbox, meaning they are downloaded from the server continually- I hate to think how much more that adds to data roaming.
Possible solutions I have tried out:
1- uncheck the "save draft on server" box in mail;preferences;mailbox behaviour (and saving it) - I did this and tried to write a message and there it appeared as each 30 seconds passed
2- change the mac mailbox behaviour settings to gmail Imap settings for apple mail and save these- as above, I wrote a message and it still appeared in my drafts folder, new, message appearing every 30 seconds.
3- uncheck the "use idle command if server suppors it"  box in mail;preferences; accounts;advanced (as someone mentions in another forum) and the message still autosaves.
HELP!
1. This seems to be common with most people
2. I am using gmail and IMAP on mac book pro 2012 10.7.4, lion
3. This never happened with my volkswagen which was also a mac but from 2006
4. Some people say this is Imap related. I have only noticed it with this apple mail and have read it has been happening to people since 2008.
5. Look forward to new solutions

Answer 1

I'm having a similar but slightly different problem. My company just migrated to Gmail, and it's saving mail drafts every 30 seconds into my Trash folder.
I unchecked the "Show in IMAP" preference in the Gmail settings, but my Drafts folder completely disappeared. I went back and checked it and the folder reappeared (with my drafts still in there).
I like the idea if starting an email on my laptop and having the option of finishing it on my iPhone or iPad, so only saving Drafts locally would not be ideal.