re :When I delete email using Thunderbird IMAP on my laptop

It is important that you have it set up to put deleted emails into the imap gmail Trash folder. In 'Account Settings' Select 'Server Settings' for imap gmail account When I delete a message: Select 'Move it to this folder' choose 'Trash on gmail account'

Under 'Message Storage' Select 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on Exit' This will compact the Inbox when you exit Thunderbird removing all the hidden now marked as deleted traces of emails.

I'm presuming the emails you deleted were in the imap 'Inbox' folder.

I've been testing this on my gmail imap account.

• I select a gmail test email in 'Inbox' on imap account.
• I clicked on 'Delete'.

I know the email will go to imap gmail Trash/bin, but at this point I've not clicked on the 'Trash'

Without doing anything else in Thunderbird.... I logged on to the gmail webmail account via a browser. Note: If already logged onto webmail, please remember you might need click on 'Refresh'.

• Email is no longer in Inbox.
• Email is in gmail 'Trash' awaiting full removal.
• Email has been removed from 'All Mail'

Can you do the same and report back on what you observe in the webmail account.

A Pop account can only gain access to the gmail 'Inbox' and download copies of anything not previously downloaded.

If the email has been deleted via the imap account then it should not be in gmail Inbox on server. But, in your case, it sounds like the email is still in the Inbox on server.

Q: In imap account, is the deleted email getting put into the imap gmail 'Trash' folder?

Deleting an email from a Pop account will never put the email into the gmail 'Trash', it will only remove the 'Inbox' label thus archiving the email in the 'All Mail' folder. This basically means you can access webmail and look in 'All Mail' and if required you can reapply an 'Inbox' label, so it reappears in 'Inbox'.

Toad-Hall,

My apologies for the late response.

Your suggestions worked as described:

• email is no longer in inbox. It no longer downloads in POP.
• email is in Trash awaiting full removal.
• email has been removed from 'All Mail'

One last (hopefully) question- Can the IMAP deleted emails be set to remove the 'inbox' label and archive in the 'All Mail' folder instead of moving to Trash? This would be the same action as occurs in POP.

Regards, Art

One last (hopefully) question- Can the IMAP deleted emails be set to remove the 'inbox' label and archive in the 'All Mail' folder instead of moving to Trash? This would be the same action as occurs in POP. Regards, Art

Yes. When you want to delete, generally you want to get rid of that useless or old email, so you click on the 'Delete' button/key/menu item and the Delete action does whatever is set up eg: Put it in the Gmail Trash. This then ensures the email has a period of time when you can recover it, but utimately it gets deleted completely off the server.

However, there may be times when you only want the labels to get removed. I'll discuss some various senarios because you do have options.

'Archive' option If you only have one copy of the email in the imap account, one quick method would be to 'Archive' the email - not 'Delete'. Gmail preceives 'Archive' to mean remove 'all' labels, so email can only be seen in 'All Mail'. But you would need to set up the 'Account Settings' > 'Copies & Folders' > Archive settings to use 'All Mail'. You subscribe to see 'All Mail', but if you do this, you may not want a full copy of everything downloaded. So, having subscribed to see 'All Mail', you can set that 'All Mail' folder to only download headers and not full copies. Account Settings > Synchronisation & Storage - click on 'Advanced and uncheck 'All Mail'.

Note: if you have more than one copy eg: same email in 'Inbox' and 'Friends'. When you 'Archive' or 'Delete', gmail removes all labels, so as there is in reality only one original email in the 'All Mail' folder, it means all copies are archived or deleted.

Personally, I find if I 'Archive' something, I still want to be be able to easily locate that email and the 'All Mail' folder has every email in it. Gmail stores all emails in the 'All Mail' folder. It is too cumbersome for me. Also, I do not want to see it. So I created an 'Archives' folder for anything I archive and set up Account Setting to use it. Basically, it applies an 'Archive' label.

Alternative Method:

• Select email - Hold down the 'Shift' key and press 'Delete' key.

This method via the keyboard is deleting email and by-passing the 'Trash'. There is no 'Undo' menu option with this method. From gmails point of view, there was no instruction to put it in Trash, so perceives the instruction to delete the label. Email still on server in 'All Mail'.

Senario: You want to keep a copy of email in imap account- maybe you need it for a while, but do not want to download to pop because utimately the email is not that important. At some point you will delete it. OR you do not want to do a repeat delete from the pop account.

You have an email in 'Inbox', you put a 'Copy' into another folder eg: 'Friends' You want to 'only' delete the copy in 'Inbox' because this means it will not get downloaded to POP. You only want to remove one specific label - the 'Inbox' label. You want to keep a copy in the 'Friends' folder. You need to use the method to by-pass the Trash.

• Select email in 'Inbox' - Hold down the 'Shift' key and press 'Delete' key.

Hi Toad-Hall,

Once again, thanks for the insight and suggestions. I did try to set up the 'Account Settings' as suggested:

'Archive' option If you only have one copy of the email in the imap account, one quick method would be to 'Archive' the email - not 'Delete'. Gmail preceives 'Archive' to mean remove 'all' labels, so email can only be seen in 'All Mail'. But you would need to set up the 'Account Settings' > 'Copies & Folders' > Archive settings to use 'All Mail'.

The emails do appear in 'All Mail' but they also download on POP. It could be my Gmail settings so I decided to leave well enough alone and kept as you originally suggested on 11/16 and that works just fine with the emails moving to Trash.

Thanks so very much! You have no idea how this ends a long stream of frustration.

I will wait to indicate solved unless you have any further suggestions regarding archive vs trash.

Most appreciated!

Art