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l008com · Apr 11, 2011, 02:45 AM

I'm trying to set it up so that when Mail.app downloads mail via POP, the mail is deleted off the server. I went into the account prefs and set it to remove the mail immediately upon downloading. I also went into the Gmail settings, into the POP settings tab, and set it to DELETE mail after being accessed via POP. And yet all the mail that I download into Mail, via POP, stays on the Gmail server, in the trash. I don't want to have to EVER log into the webmail interface to empty my trash. But this account is going to see a huge amount of mail, so the mailbox will fill up if I leave it the way it is. Anyone know how I can make this happen?

Waragainstsleep · Apr 11, 2011, 04:23 AM

It should auto-empty every 30 days? Not frequent enough?

Waragainstsleep · Apr 11, 2011, 04:24 AM

Better hope it is frequent enough because you are out of luck:

Can I set my Trash folder to automatically empty instantly or at any sooner interval than thirty days? - Gmail Help

l008com · Apr 11, 2011, 05:08 AM

What a pain in the ass. Why would they give you the option to delete it, if it didn't actually delete it. Oh well, I hope 30 days is enough. It probably will be.

Laminar · Apr 11, 2011, 07:42 AM

A bit OT but why not use SMTP? Not that it would fix your problem, but I switched and never looked back as soon as Gmail offered it.

Thorzdad · Apr 11, 2011, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by l008com

What a pain in the ass. Why would they give you the option to delete it, if it didn't actually delete it. Oh well, I hope 30 days is enough. It probably will be.

It's Google. Deleting information isn't their mission. I doubt anything ever really gets deleted at Google. Not completely, anyway.

ChrisF · Apr 11, 2011, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by Laminar

A bit OT but why not use SMTP? Not that it would fix your problem, but I switched and never looked back as soon as Gmail offered it.

In the interest of clarity, I assume you mean IMAP.
As for the original question, you expect you'd receive >7GB of email within 30 days? Yikes.

mduell · Apr 11, 2011, 09:33 PM

IMAP would exacerbate his problem. I think Laminar is really asking why not run his own SMTP server and just use the mail spool for storage.

l008com · Apr 11, 2011, 09:34 PM

The whole point is to receive email, not to send it. Running my own SMTP server wouldn't help. And I do have my own mail server, but why bog it down with this particular project when google will volunteer for free

Cold Warrior · Apr 12, 2011, 08:04 PM

You could use IMAP with a client-side rule to move messages into a local Mail.app folder.

besson3c · Apr 12, 2011, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by l008com

The whole point is to receive email, not to send it. Running my own SMTP server wouldn't help. And I do have my own mail server, but why bog it down with this particular project when google will volunteer for free

If the mail is going to be stored on your computer, I'm not sure how running your own POP server would bog things down any more. I *believe* that Hotmail still offers POP, FWIW...

l008com · Apr 12, 2011, 09:18 PM

The mail isn't being 'stored' so much as it's being processed.

besson3c · Apr 12, 2011, 09:54 PM

Just a lot of connections being initiated? Can I ask what you are doing?

Are you looking for possible alternatives?