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chris v · Aug 11, 2009, 03:46 PM

I've got a gmail account which I've configured to act as a POP account, and I check it using Apple's Mail.app. (I'm a stodgy old-skooler who likes my files stored locally, instead of in some "cloud.")

I have Mail.app configured to "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message: (when moved from inbox)" but it never does. I have thousands of old messages in my gmail account on their server, and I can only remove them from the server by logging into gmail in a browser & deleting them from the gmail web interface.

Is this normal, or am I doing it wrong?

jrafter · Aug 11, 2009, 04:35 PM

You must set message handling preferences for POP in Gmail, not your local client:
Gmail > Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > 2. When messages are accessed with POP [delete Gmail's copy]

mduell · Aug 11, 2009, 05:07 PM

Why not use IMAP? You still get your precious local copy.

chris v · Sep 7, 2009, 09:59 PM

Originally Posted by jrafter

You must set message handling preferences for POP in Gmail, not your local client:
Gmail > Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > 2. When messages are accessed with POP [delete Gmail's copy]

I forgot I started this thread -- thanks, belatedly, for the response. Unfortunately, after having a look, it doesn't appear to have Mail's POP functionality of deleting the message from the server when it's deleted locally.

I need to get to my gmail remotely, sometimes, so I don't want them deleted from the gmail server immediately upon download.

mduell, I s'pose I should re-evaluate how IMAP works through the Mail.app client -- I may have had some misconceptions there.

mduell · Sep 7, 2009, 10:28 PM

Set it up and take a peek in the ~username/Library/Mail/[email protected] folder.

patrix · 09:07 AM

nm...

imitchellg5 · Sep 9, 2009, 10:16 AM

Gmail and IMAP work very well, just as well really as MobileMe and Push in practice. You'll love it across multiple devices.

all2ofme · Oct 15, 2009, 04:24 PM

Really dredging up an old post here, but if the OP wanted to make sure that even if Google were to blitz his/her Gmail account the emails'd be around wouldn't a locally store POP account be better?

I'd have assumed that the local IMAP copy would be wiped out as it synced with the (now) empty version chez Google. Or is that not the case?

If it's not, great - I'll stop using Thunderbird/POP as a backup. I'm paranoid but don't mind directing it elsewhere

mduell · Oct 16, 2009, 06:40 PM

Even if the IMAP sync deletes all the messages on his comptuer, all the messages will still be in the users backup (Time Machine, etc).

besson3c · Oct 16, 2009, 10:08 PM

Yeah, but then if the client ever resyncs with the server and the messages no longer exist on the server, the local copy is gone. I'm not sure if you can recover from an OS X Mail cache either.

If you are comfortable with command line utilities you might want to create another IMAP account and use the utility "imapsync" to sync between accounts. You could set this up as a cronjob. I personally like this more than leaving a POP client open at all times.

besson3c · Oct 17, 2009, 01:12 PM

Here is the project page for imapsync:

imapsync | freshmeat.net

the other perk to using this over a POP backup is that it will mirror all of your IMAP metadata such as its flags:

\Seen
\Answered
\Flagged
\Deleted
\Draft
\Recent

To run it, you simply pass it the server hostname, username, path to file containing the password, ssl toggle, and port for both source and destination servers as arguments, it will do the rest, giving you a perfect mirror.

mduell · Oct 17, 2009, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yeah, but then if the client ever resyncs with the server and the messages no longer exist on the server, the local copy is gone. I'm not sure if you can recover from an OS X Mail cache either.

Which is why I said they're in your backup...

besson3c · Oct 17, 2009, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Which is why I said they're in your backup...

Backup of what, the actual IMAP store, or the OS X Mail cache?

mduell · Oct 17, 2009, 04:29 PM

The backup of your MUAs message storage structure.

besson3c · Oct 17, 2009, 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

The backup of your MUAs message storage structure.

Okay, that's what I thought.

So, do we know whether it is possible to take the OS X Mail cache/offline copy and transfer these messages back up to the server, preserving the headers and IMAP flags of the original message?

I haven't looked into this, but I highly doubt it.

mduell · Oct 17, 2009, 07:58 PM

Surely your MUA can move messages between folders while maintaining metadata.

besson3c · Oct 17, 2009, 09:08 PM

What folders? I'm not following you. How does one move mail from their backup cache back up to the server without resyncing with the server, thereby destroying the cache?

mduell · Oct 17, 2009, 09:43 PM

Once you've restored the messages to local folders in your MUA, you can move them to folders that are synchronized with an IMAP server and they'll be copied to the server.

besson3c · Oct 17, 2009, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Once you've restored the messages to local folders in your MUA, you can move them to folders that are synchronized with an IMAP server and they'll be copied to the server.

How? I'm assuming you mean another IMAP server, and the account with the cache on an account that is not configured to check for new messages? Once you initiate the copy I'm pretty sure it will try to copy from server to server, not from cache to server.

Don't count on the cache as a backup, this is a bad idea.