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How to get Mail to completely delete downloaded emails from GMail?

After downloading emails from GMail, those emails are NOT deleted from GMail.


I want the downloaded GMail emails deleted from the GMail server after Mail has downloaded them.


How to accomplish this?


I am not talking about deleting email from GMail's Trash, Junk etc.


I need the newly download GMail's deleted from GMail after Mail has downloaded them.


Thanks!

Mac mini, macOS 12.0

Posted on Jan 10, 2022 2:11 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 10, 2022 3:03 PM

What you want is a characteristic of the old, indeed ancient, POP email where you device takes an email from the server and in the process deletes it. Gmail is setup as a modern IMAP system - as is iCloud Mail - and it synchronises your mail across all your devices. Mail will be deleted from the server when you delete it from a device (at various durations as determined by the settings made in the Mail application).


However, Gmail can be set to be a POP service. Sign in to your Gmail account on the web and go to settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP. From here you can change it to POP.


After you change it to POP the only copy of email will be the one you capture on the device accessing the mail.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 10, 2022 3:03 PM in response to drffc

What you want is a characteristic of the old, indeed ancient, POP email where you device takes an email from the server and in the process deletes it. Gmail is setup as a modern IMAP system - as is iCloud Mail - and it synchronises your mail across all your devices. Mail will be deleted from the server when you delete it from a device (at various durations as determined by the settings made in the Mail application).


However, Gmail can be set to be a POP service. Sign in to your Gmail account on the web and go to settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP. From here you can change it to POP.


After you change it to POP the only copy of email will be the one you capture on the device accessing the mail.

Jan 10, 2022 2:59 PM in response to drffc

How is the Gmail account set up?

If a POP3 account then there is a setting/checkbox to remove the message from the server after downloading.

If an IMAP account then a message is automatically removed from all devices if deleted from one device. An IMAP is recommended if you use the same account on multiple devices.

Jan 10, 2022 7:51 PM in response to drffc

You can switch your Gmail to POP in the Settings > Show all Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

However, Gmail will still keep copies of your email on their server listed under All Mail. How else do you expect them to be able to harvest you to sell?


In theory, if you set it up as POP, at least the Inbox should be downloaded and removed from the inbox on the server. However, it's Gmail and not POP, so I don't know what will happen with those emails on the server.

How to get Mail to completely delete downloaded emails from GMail?

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