From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

The app Mail, that is.

I am doing a clean install on my new MacBook Pro, and thought I'd delete
tens of thousands of old emails. But no!

I don't understand how "Important" got set up, nor how to disable it.
And I am flummoxed a bit by "Archive" in Gmail only.

The problem arises in trying to delete- they keep showing up elsewhere!

Can I really delete stuff off of Gmail? No problem with the Apple email account.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

On 2020-08-25 16:07:38 +0000, John McWilliams said:

The app Mail, that is.

I am doing a clean install on my new MacBook Pro, and thought I'd
delete tens of thousands of old emails. But no!

I don't understand how "Important" got set up, nor how to disable it.
And I am flummoxed a bit by "Archive" in Gmail only.

The problem arises in trying to delete- they keep showing up elsewhere!

Can I really delete stuff off of Gmail? No problem with the Apple email account.

When you delete mail in a folder other than trash in Gmail, it removes
it from that particular folder,
but leaves it in the all mail folder. It has to be deleted from there
to get it moved to the
trash, which can then be emptied. Others may feel differently, but if
I was in a position
where I was going to trash a lot of messages, I would go to the web
interface, click on the
all mail folder and do it from there. Otherwise, in the mail app, go
the the archive area and
click on the Gmail all mail folder and move those messages to the
trash. Then open the Gmail trash
folder (which on my system is separate from the trash folders for my
other email addresses),
and delete everything from there.

--
Paul Goodman

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

In message <ri3d0b$2bt$1@dont-email.me> John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> wrote:

The app Mail, that is.

I am doing a clean install on my new MacBook Pro, and thought I'd delete tens of thousands of old emails. But no!

I don't understand how "Important" got set up, nor how to disable it.
And I am flummoxed a bit by "Archive" in Gmail only.

Mail.app does not have "Important". Sounds like you are using Gmail, and
gmail is its own thing. For one thing, unless you go through very
specific steps, gmail does not delete any email. Ever.

The problem arises in trying to delete- they keep showing up elsewhere!

This is the gmail way.

Again, nothing to do with Mail.app.

Can I really delete stuff off of Gmail?

Not really. The only mail that gmail deletes is messages marked spam, and
even then, not automatically.

You can go to the gmail webface, enter a search term, select all the
messages that match, and delete those messages. However, this is 1)
tedious and 2_ may take many hours or days to actually delete them. I
went through this a year or two ago when I scrubbed everything I could
out of google and deleting the mail was onerous and slow.

AFAIK you cannot do this from any mail client, even google's own, it
must be done through the webface,

No problem with the Apple email account.

Nor will you have this problem with any non-gmail account (well,
possibly Exchange depending on how exchange server is setup. Many
companies do not allow deletion of mail either).

--
According to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle, chaos is found in
greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always
defeats order, because it is better organized.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

In message <20200825154246281-goodmanp@comcast.net> Paul Goodman <goodmanp@comcast.net> wrote:

Otherwise, in the mail app, go the the archive area and click on the
Gmail all mail folder and move those messages to the trash. Then open
the Gmail trash folder (which on my system is separate from the trash
folders for my other email addresses), and delete everything from
there.

This did not work for me. The messages were still in All Mail on gmail's webface. YMMV (I was deleting well over half a million emails).


--
Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing
chocolate covered candies and, y'know, in some cultures, a
chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don't care, because I do
believe in it. Bottom line: it's couples who are truly right for
each other that wade through the same crap as everybody else, but
the big difference is they don't let it take them down. One of
those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship
every time. If it's right, and they're real lucky, one of them
will say something.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

On 2020-08-25 22:21:48 +0000, Lewis said:

In message <20200825154246281-goodmanp@comcast.net> Paul Goodman <goodmanp@comcast.net> wrote:

Otherwise, in the mail app, go the the archive area and click on the
Gmail all mail folder and move those messages to the trash. Then open
the Gmail trash folder (which on my system is separate from the trash
folders for my other email addresses), and delete everything from
there.

This did not work for me. The messages were still in All Mail on gmail's webface. YMMV (I was deleting well over half a million emails).

I don't get a lot of mail sent to my Gmail address, so I would normally only delete 3 or 4 at a time. What is unusual about my setup in Apple Mail
is that my Gmail
trash folder is separate from the others (I do not remember how it got
that way).
Hitting the trash icon at the top of the app does exactly as you
describe, leaving the
message in all mail. But if I drag the message to the gmail trash
folder, then delete,
it seems to work. But to be honest, I haven't looked at the web interface
in a long time. You might be right and they are still there...

--
Paul Goodman

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.apps

On 2020-08-26 01:38:10 +0000, Paul Goodman said:

<snip>

What is unusual about my setup in Apple Mail is that my Gmail
trash folder is separate from the others (I do not remember how it got
that way). Hitting the trash icon at the top of the app does exactly as
you describe, leaving the message in all mail. But if I drag the
message to the gmail trash folder, then delete, it seems to work. But
to be honest, I haven't looked at the web interface in a long time.
You might be right and they are still there...

The problem is that you're using Gmail. It's is an attrocious email
system, especially from third-party apps like Apple's Mail. Gmail uses
all sorts of non-standard garbage, such as it's own trash box that at
best causes confusion.


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