Purging duplicate messages Apple Mail / Gmail

After about 5 years of using Apple Mail to access my Gmail account, I've belatedly set up it up 'properly' so that I'm no longer storing a local copy of the "All Mail" folder from my Gmail account (i.e. everything I've ever sent/received, which was often duplicated if I didn't 'delete' it!). This successfully purged several GB.
I also changed the settings so that my Gmail "Sent" and "Drafts" folders are used as the same on Apple Mail. However, I think I might still have some duplicates of the "Sent" and "Drafts" folders / messages? I say this because in Finder, I see that I have the following folders:
Hugo -> Library -> Mail -> [email protected] -> [Gmail -> Sent Mail.imapmbox
Hugo -> Library -> Mail -> Mailboxes -> Sent Messages (Gmail).mbox
These are 2.81GB and 856MB respectively, so it feels like there's probably some duplication. Any thoughts?

in case you haven't found the answer yet... using an imap account in apple mail, select the mailbox [Gmail]/drafts. go to the menu Mailbox/Use This Mailbox For and select "Drafts". same goes for sent, trash, and junk. though i recommend reading google's help on using imap before making these kinds of changes. and be aware that gmail and apple mail don't play together perfectly.

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How do I keep duplicate messages in Mail and Gmail?

For the past few years messages would appear in both my Mail and Gmail inboxes. If I deleted a message in Gmail, the duplicate would REMAIN in Mail. Therefore, I could keep some messages in my gmail account that pertained to work and delete their duplicates in Mail (since I wouldn't need them at home). Likewise, I could keep some messages organized in my Mail folders and delete their counterparts in the Gmail account.
At some point I must've downloaded an update or something because the accounts are now totally synced. If I delete a message in my Gmail inbox (or even move it to a Gmail folder), it vanishes from my Mail inbox.
I know this is how most people like these programs to work together, but is there a way to revert it back to the way it was? I tried toggling off POP, then testing it (didn't work). Then I toggled off IMAP (still didn't work). Then I toggled both of them off (still didn't work). My Mail account is listed as IMAP for what it's worth.

Try posting this in the 10.7 Mail forum. You'll get more help there.
DALE

Outbound Apple Mail Gmail Messages Trapped in Outbox

Mavens,
On an iMac running Mavericks (OS X 10.9 (13A603)) and Apple Mail 7.0 (1822), outbound GMail messages remain trapped in the Outbox.
NOTE: This GMail account is using Google's 2-step Verification with an Application-specific Password for Apple Mail.
Apple Mail does access GMail's Inbox (it seems that all Gmail Inbox messages are reflected in Apple Mail's Inbox).
Outbound Gmail Emails remain trapped in Apple Mail's Outbox.
ALSO—
If Apple Mail is closed, then re-opened, it (Apple Mail) asks for the GMail password...over & over & over...the only solution I've found is to create a new Google Application-specific password. Very tedious, and quite un-Apple-like ("...it just works.").
If you've encountered—and fixed—either of these problems...what do you suggest? Any ideas?
Many, many thanks in advance.
Best,
Plane Wryter

May have found a fix!
Thrashing around in Mail | Preferences | Accounts...
I painstakingly worked through all the settings for the GMail account (e.g., double-checking IMAP and SMTP parameters).
In doing so, I notices that the setting for "TLS Certificate" was "None" (as it is for my other GMail accounts).
On a whim, I clicked the drop-down for TLS Certificate...and selected com.apple.idms.etc.etc.
Allons-y! It worked.
A moment after selecting the TLS Certficate setting...the [formerly] trapped Outbox Emails launched on their way.
If you have the same symptoms, I hope this helps.

How to remove duplicate messages from Mail in Mavericks (POP)

Hello
I'm having some significant problems with Apple Mail, and despite having researched widely, I haven't been able to find a solution yet. Here is my tale of woe...
My set up is that I use Mail with 5 separate accounts, downloading all messages using POP. I keep all my mail so that I have a permanent record of all conversations, going back more than 10 years - this is about 250,000 emails. I'm running the latest version of Mavericks on a 2010 MBP. I have no intention of moving to IMAP - I need to keep a local archive of all my mail.
A few months ago I was having problems with Mail being very slow to load and search emails. I decided to rebuild the mailboxes, but afterwards discovered that thousands of messages in the inbox of one of my accounts (and some of the sub-folders) had disappeared. Once I realised I tried to go back to a recent Time Machine back up, but, for whatever reason, that part of the back up hadn't worked properly and I was unable to recover the previous status. Ileft it while I decided what to do, and had time to deal with it.
The last 2 years worth of emails on that account were still archived on gmail, so last week I decided to try redownloading the whole lot (something like 72,000 messages), and then uplanned to use one of the scripts I was aware of to remove the duplicates to the trash, and then remove any duplicates in the trash forever. That ought to mean I at least had an archive of the last two years of missing messages, even if I had no record of which ones had been flagged or replied to, etc.
The downloading took about 24 hours to complete, and I now have almost 70,000 messages in the inbox of that account. However, I hadn't figured on two things:
1. Mail 'hides' duplicate messages, meaning that all of the messages I've downloaded are showing as unread, and I can't differentiate the ones I already had in my Inbox, and the new downloads. When I click on those apparently unread messages I can see if they have been replied to or forwarded, etc, but there's no obvious way for me to remove the ones I have already dealt with to the trash, without going through them all manually, which is clearly impossible.
2. The scripts I'd found for removing duplicates don't work. Andreas Amann's Remove Duplicates script doesn't work under Mavericks, and he has abandoned the project. I've also tried the remove-duplicate-messages.scpt made by Jolly Roger (http://jollyroger.kicks-***.org/software/), and while it *sometimes* works on individual subfolders on my Mac (but as far as I can tell removes the duplicate in that folder, rather than the newly downloaded version), mostly it doesn't work at all - it creates a 'Remove Duplicate Messages' folder on my desktop, a log inside it and a folder for removed messages, but nothing appears in the duplicates folder.
So, I'm left in a position where I have 70,000 apparently unread messages in my Inbox, a massively bloated Mail library (which has pretty much doubled in size), a slow and unresponsive Mail program. I figure I have a number of options. Either I could abandon the last week's efforts and revert to the version of

Apologies, this was posted here in error. Please find updated post here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/27261965#27261965

Apple Mail - Gmail IMAP (Running out of space!)

Hello,
I currently use Apple Mail as my email client. I have my Gmail account set up as an IMAP on Apple Mail. It is a business email account so I have a 25 GB limit. I'm a Graphic Designer and get too many large attachments from clients. Over the last several years these emails have managed to fill up my quota. I need to clear space quick. I don't want to randomly delete emails as you never know in this business when you are going to have to refer to an old email. I'd like to find a way to back-up my email and then go into Gmail and delete a large chunk of my mail.
This was my line of thought. I'm hoping there is someone out there who can verify if this is a good idea or if it just won't work.
I was thinking of going into my user library. There I see my Mail folder. It is very large (64GB) which indicates that all my mail and attachments are there. I have also confirmed that the "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing" is selected in Apple Mail. So it looks like I found them on my Mac. I'd like to make a copy of that folder, compress it and put it on a drive for safe keeping just in case I have one of those moments where I have to find that one email from 3 years ago. If this does happen I thought perhaps I could use a spare Mac Mini I have sitting around, copy this file into the correct location on that computer, start up mail and access all these old emails. (I wouldn't connect it to the internet, just in case it somehow tries to connect with Gmail online).
So does that sound reasonable? Or am I just dreaming that it can be this easy?
Thank you in advance.

Good call. Thanks for your comment.
Along the lines of your suggestion, there is a dialog with instructions and comments taking place here:
http://luciddesign.co.nz/2008/7/21/how-to-set-up-apple-mail-for-better-gmail-ima p-support
I have just tried the suggestions and – and while it's a little early to be sure about this – they seem to work.
This approach seems to clean up the Apple Mail interface and make it act a little more 'Apple like'. And it appears to solve the problem with duplicate files scattered here and there.

TS3276 Duplicate messages in mail

I get messages left in my drafts folder, but they also show in my sent folder. How can I keep from getting these duplicates? Or what am I doing that causes them? Doesn't happen for everything. Also happens in 10.7

Is it a POP account? If so, then the MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3 file has perhaps gotten corrupted. If you purge it (Home/Library/Mail/MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3) then all messages remaining on the POP server will once more be downloaded, but for the last time.
If you have had this account through earlier versions of OSX (pre-Leopard) then remove any files of that similar name that are leftovers, usually in the POP account folder itself.
Ernie

Retrieve old downloaded messages Apple Mail OS 10.9 Mavericks

Hi,
I was using Apple Mail to store some old email messages/attachments that I downloaded from a business gmail account.
I no longer work for that company and my business gmail account is inactive so I can't access it online.
I used to be able to access my old email messages/attachments that were downloaded into Apple Mail, but
since the OS 10.9 upgrade, Apple Mail is empty.
The other threads seem to have solutions that sync Apple Mail with active email accounts online.
How do I retrieve my old downloaded messages/attachments?
Thank you,
Jess

Hello Jessvech,
It sounds like you are not seeing emails that were downloaded before the Mavericks upgrade. I suggest reindexing the emails in your Inbox with the following article:
Mail (Mavericks): Reindex messages
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14876
If Mail detects problems with information in your mailboxes, it may need to repair the mailboxes by reindexing your messages.
At other times, you may want to reindex messages yourself—for example, when searching mailboxes using Subject, To, or From doesn’t return the correct results.
Quit Mail if it’s open.
In ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.To show your home Library folder, hold down the Option key, then in the Finder choose Go > Library.
Open Mail.Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

Tor + Apple Mail (+ Gmail)

Hello,
I have three email accounts.
One from Gmail, one from the university and a private from an organisation. All use SSL on port 993
I use Apple Mail for all three and would like to let the traffic from Apple Mail running through the Tor network.
I do not know if that's a good idea because I had read somewhere in an old article that the password could be read and the message content could be changed. But the article doesn't seem to be very correct, because they tested it out using an https connection to gmail webinterface and I do not belive that the message was changed.
In the Tor IRC channel, they said I should make sure that Apple Mail does not fallback to clear-text password transmission on, if a secure authentication is not possible.
So how does Apple Mail react in such a case?
Thanks and best regards
Binary Coder

Mail troubleshooting - Yosemite
Troubleshooting sending and receiving email messages
Troubleshooting sending email messages
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Apple mail gmail show reply not working

Hi, I have multiple IMAP accounts set up in Apple Mail. 2 accounts are on my personal website hosted with bluehost.com, and the 3rd is my work email that is hosted with GMAIL. I'm sending and receiving messages just fine. My typical workflow is to reply to a message in the in box, and then manually move it to one of my folders that are on the GMAIL server for archiving based on subject. While the message is in the inbox the show reply arrow is visible, but when I move it to the folder on the GMAIL server the show reply is lost. this makes it hard to se what I wrote back to people and track email conversations. My other IMAP accounts behave correctly and maintain the reply chain when they are moved to folders either on my mac or on the server.
Has anyone else encountered this, and does it have a solution?
thanks!

I deleted the old account and put in a new one with all the correct data for the iCloud account. It downloads OK, and all the mailfolders she had downloaded and fill up. Everything looks normal except the Send, Reply and Reply All buttons don't work. I don't think it's related to iCloud though.
follow-up 3/2/12 - The Send, Reply and Reply All button problem was a result of having loaded OS 10.6.3 from the DVD after having 10.6.8 on the machine. I couldn't load the 10.6.8 update on the MBP because of another problem on that computer (shuts down from over-temp after long CPU tasks (like transferring huge files, cloning drives etc).
Apparently the 10.6.3 load didn't completely wipe the prior newer Mail app, and it was left in a crippled state trying to run on 10.6.3. I took the drive out of the MBP and loaded 10.6.8 onto it using a dock on my iMac and reinstalled it in the MBP - this fixed the mail button problem

Duplicate Messages in Mail

My Mail app is loading multiple copies of the same email, even after being deleted multiple times. I've erased all rules, so it's not that. And on my iPhone, I only get it once, so I know it's the Mac mail app itself. Any thoughts?

Is it a POP account? If so, then the MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3 file has perhaps gotten corrupted. If you purge it (Home/Library/Mail/MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3) then all messages remaining on the POP server will once more be downloaded, but for the last time.
If you have had this account through earlier versions of OSX (pre-Leopard) then remove any files of that similar name that are leftovers, usually in the POP account folder itself.
Ernie

Apple Mail -- Gmail -- How Do I Delete Subfolders?

I had to reload my 2 mail accounts in Apple Mail (specifically Gmail). Before, it used to be very simple with an inbox, sent, trash, and outbox for each respective account.
Now after reloading my mail accounts, all the subfolders appeared, the ones Google pre-creates for every account on their web-based access. (ie: All Mail, Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, Trash). How do I get rid of all these and keep it simple like it used to be?
HELP!

Apple Mail is a program, not a mail account. It allows you to retrieve mail from any email address to your desktop.
Can you provide more detail as to what you'd like to do? I'm assuming you have a Gmail email address. Do you have any other addresses - perhaps an iCloud address - that you'd like to use?
What account(s) are set up in Apple Mail at the moment?
Matt

Apple Mail & Gmail

Hi everyone
I am using gMail as my mail client but want to use gmail and google calendars via my apple mail and apple calendar interface.
Setting this up is easy enough but I wanted to know if anyone has had any issues in using gmail this way.
Is it recommended? Pros, Cons?
Has anyone come acoss any issues doing this? Gmail uses labels and not folders.. How does this affect apple mail?

Yes
Just open Mail go to Preferences>Accounts> Click on the + on the bottom left corner and add an e-mail account

Apple Mail & Gmail IMAP: Any tips for success?

Hello all.
Is anyone having a lot of success with using Apple Mail with Gmail IMAP? I've followed all the directions, and things work pretty well for a while ... but inevitably, after a few days, Mail seems to stop working entirely.
I can delete Gmail account on Mail and start over again ... but, if I have to keep doing that, what's the point?
The problems usually begin when I ask Apple Mail to open the Gmail All Mail folder. It starts opening the mail -- and never stops. I have to do a lot of force quitting.
What have other people been experiencing? What tips can people share? I'd like to get everything working properly.

I think GMail's IMAP support is just extremely slow. For now I'm still using POP on my computers and IMAP for phone access only. Hopefully it will speed up soon enough.
But the problems you're experiencing aren't unique to you. I'm not sure there's anything you can do, and I don't know that it's a Mac specific problem?

Apple Mail, GMail and Cableone

I see a lot of problems on here with imap/pop and gmail, but not one that addresses my issue so...
Cableone recently "partnered" with google gmail to handle their email. I didn't realize it until I went in to set up a short term email for my husband. I couldn't get it to work and called cableone and was then informed of the new mail changes.
A tech support guy helped me set that account up and all my other emails—we have 7 accounts—and they work fine except my sound doesn't play when I receive mail AND several more boxes are set up at the bottom of my Mail for those imap accounts AND my Dock Mail always says I have double the messages that I actually do have AND my little "clock" next to our email accounts doesn't spin like it used to. Now, these might not be big deals but I want it to work like it should and all of these issues have only shown up when I set them to IMAP.
So this morning I called Cableone and said I want to set our MAIN account back to POP with GMail and let it work for a couple of hours and see what happened. He helped me do this and warned me that I might lose some of my emails and since there weren't any important ones on there I said it wasn't a problem. I am not liking the GMail imap. Since I only set our main house account back to POP and it can be done and work fine, here are my questions:
If I lose some that I've stored on my computer in "On My Mac" can they be retrieved?
And what is the major difference between POP and IMAP and am I safe with it being POP with GMail?

Still need help. I was on the phone with Cableone yesterday and deleted all my email accounts and added them back on with remote access help from them. Worked when they emailed me a test email, but again I'm not getting all my email from them. When I check online I see emails I'm not getting. BUT I am getting all of them on my MacBook Pro. Now, how can that be? I have the iMac and MBP sitting here together and the MBP gets all the emails but iMac doesn't. Does anyone know what I can check to see. MBP runs 10.5.8 and iMac is 10.6.4 is the only difference. This is very frustrating, but surely one of you gurus can think of something. I really don't want to have to change ISPs. Please! TIA

View Duplicate Messages in Apple Mail 7.3 in Mavericks

Hello,
Up till at least OS X Lion, if there were duplicate email messages, there would be a blue link in the header of the message in Apple Mail that you could click on to reveal the duplicate messages.
Im currently running Mavericks and Apple Mail 7.3.
By default, there no longer seems to be any indication that there are duplicate messages?? Is that correct???
I have found the Terminal commands that will allow me to "ungroup" duplicate messages:
To disable automatic grouping of duplicate messages, quit Mail then run this command in Terminal:
          defaults write com.apple.mail AlwaysShowDuplicates -bool true
To revert to the default setting, run this command:
     defaults write com.apple.mail AlwaysShowDuplicates -bool false
or simply delete the setting altogether with this command:
          defaults delete com.apple.mail AlwaysShowDuplicates
If you want to see how Mail behaves with this setting enabled, but without modifying your preference file, start Mail from Terminal with this command:
          /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail -AlwaysShowDuplicates YES
These seem to work fine as far as listing the duplicate messages in the message list.
HOWEVER . . .
What I am wondering is . .
Is there no way to leave the duplicates "grouped" so there is only single entry in the message list BUT have the link in the header that indicates that there are duplicates and allow you to click on that link to reveal the duplicates in the message list???    I find having the link in the header easier to work with rather than having ALL of the duplicates ungrouped in the message list.
ALSO - for what it's worth:
I also tried setting the "Show Header Detail" option in Mail Preferences to "Custom" which includes an entry called "Duplicates" in the list of times displayed in the custom header but I still do not get any indication (that I can see) that there are duplicate messages . . .
Any ideas or experience with this????
John

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4045156
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4863
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3276
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH8200
Maybe some of these might help, hope. I had as imilar issue, I deleted my mail and recreated it.

Purging duplicate messages Apple Mail / Gmail

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