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Hi,

Yes, I know this topic has been discussed on this forum before, but I have not 100% been able to put the pieces together.

I can get Apple Mail 3.2 running Gmail via IMAP with no problem by following the instructions on the google site:

Gmail: Help Center

Then I set my account as directed by Google for recommended account settings:

Gmail: Help Center

I am able to send and receive email. But I see some quirks:

1. When I send a message, it is not stored in the Apple Mail "Sent" box. It just remains empty. Why?
2. When I sent my first message the "Store Sent Messages on the Server" became checked even though I unchecked it during account setup. Why?
3. If I have multiple gmail accounts that I set up in Apple Mail 3.2, will they all be under one Apple Mail 3.2 "Inbox" combined?

Thanks for your help.

1.) If you haven't done it yet, set your IMAP Path Prefix in the Account's advanced tab to [Gmail] (with the brackets). Then select the gmail account's folders and assign a role to each of them. To do that, select a folder in the sidebar and go to View -> Use this Mailbox for -> [Your Folder].

2.) It's the way IMAP works. Unlike with POP, you usually don't store messages locally (except for a cache). You work on the remote server.

3.) Yes. If you assign the mailbox roles accordingly, you'll have one main inbox which can be split up into multiple mailboxes by expanding the mailbox hierarchy. (click the little triangle next to "Inbox".) The same behavior applies to all other mailboxes for the accounts you have set up.

You can find a more detailed tutorial here:
How-to: Proper Gmail IMAP for iPhone & Apple Mail

Thanks moep. I will make sure i do those steps.

The weird thing is that the Google instructions for recommended client settings said to *uncheck* the the "Store Sent Messages on the Server" property. Weird.

You can save your sent mail, drafts, junk, or trash in a local folder... Just create this folder, select it, and select "use this mailbox for" from your Mailbox menu. There is nothing special about any of these folders, they are just arbitrary folders the client uses for these purposes.

I wouldn't suggest storing any of your mail locally though, that absolutely defeats the purpose of IMAP. If you are concerned with privacy, you probably shouldn't be using a GMail account in the first place.

Gmail automatically stores sent messages even if you set Mail.app not to save them. If you have Mail.app store them as well, they'll get stored twice.

I tried using IMAP with Gmail, then dumped it after a couple of days. It just didn't do it for me.

I've found it pretty good. Unfortunately that depends on me using Thunderbird. With Mail, I hate the way Mail interacts with it. It has some quirks or issues that have tended to ignore my move/copy commands or populate folders with multiple copies.

With Entourage 2008, if it drops the connection (I use it with IDLE enabled) for a second, it'll pop up an error message and won't reconnect until I manually close that window. Not good if I want to keep it in the background with persistent push.

OTOH, Thunderbird has none of these failings. I recently created another gmail account just for MacNN, and am using Thunderbird just for it, so that I can make more use of instant email notifications and subscribed threads.