GMail and IMAP

On Nov 1, 2007, at 6:50 AM, danwilson wrote:

> Is it possible to use IMAP and *ALSO* store all of my messages in a
> local client?
>
> I currently use Mail.app on a PowerBook to store years of email
> history and love to be able to search it, even when away from
> internet access. That said, I can see the obvious advantages of IMAP
> for accessing your mail from multiple machines/locations but I think
> I still want the comfort of knowing that all my mail is archived in
> one place with my own backup systems taking care of it as well.
> Thoughts?

It's a mail client program function. (At least, it's hard to imagine
what useful subset of IMAP a server might implement that wouldn't
allow it. The IMAP protocol is complex--I haven't looked to see
whether local retention can be prohibited by the server, nor is it
clear how a server would enforce that on an unwilling client.)

Mail.app in Leopard offers--for .Mac and other IMAP accounts--four
choices, and the choices are per account.

Keep
    all messages and their attachments
    all messages but omit attachments
    only messages I've read
    don't keep copies of any messages

Older Mail.app versions and other clients may offer other choices.

   --John

On Nov 1, 2007, at 9:50 AM, danwilson wrote:

> Is it possible to use IMAP and *ALSO* store all of my messages in a
> local client?

Yes. In Apple Mail, under Preferences | Account | Advanced is "Keep
copies of messages for offline viewing" with four settings the most
comprehensive being "All messages and their attachments." Accounts in
Thunderbird have an option for making messages available for working
offline and you select which mailboxes you want available offline.

On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, danwilson wrote:

> Is it possible to use IMAP and *ALSO* store all of my messages in a
> local client?

Apple Mail (among others) can cache a copy of all your IMAP mail.
 
This way, you get the benefits of being able to switch back & forth
among different machines & mail clients, and you also get the benefits
of being able to search & manage your mail even if you're offline.

Next time you get online, it just syncs the changes back to the server.
It's as near to automatic as one could wish for, IMO.



--
Chris Devers

Quoting danwilson <danwilsonaol.com>:
> Is it possible to use IMAP and *ALSO* store all of my messages in a
> local client?

It depends on the client (and perhaps the server). I use Mulberry
with Cyrus IMAP and it has a mode called disconnected mode that allows
me to keep copies of all my messages on both my server and my local
machine. I can apply the setting per mailbox folder.

Kevin

The biggest advantage of keeping mail locally is that all the mail from multiple email accounts (.mac, ATT Yahoo, gMail, spamcop, independent servers, etc.) can be interfiled in common topical mailboxes in one place. Or can IMAP clients be configured to display mail from multiple accounts in a single mailbox?

I've not used IMAP, and until this discussion really didn't understand at all what it was. Am I correct in the following understanding? The main difference from POP is that although it's quite possible to download from POP and still leave the mail on the server, with POP you can't do anything with the mail on the server, but with IMAP, actions performed on mail in the client (i.e. changing subjects so they're useful for archiving, creating mailboxes, moving mail between mailboxes) are saved to the mail on the server, rather than only acting on the local copies.

[That's approximately correct. -Joe]

On Nov 3, 2007, at 7:19 AM, SteveJ1 wrote:

> The biggest advantage of keeping mail locally is that all the mail
> from multiple email accounts (.mac, ATT Yahoo, gMail, spamcop,
> independent servers, etc.) can be interfiled in common topical
> mailboxes in one place. Or can IMAP clients be configured to display
> mail from multiple accounts in a single mailbox?
>
> I've not used IMAP, and until this discussion really didn't
> understand at all what it was. Am I correct in the following
> understanding? The main difference from POP is that although it's
> quite possible to download from POP and still leave the mail on the
> server, with POP you can't do anything with the mail on the server,
> but with IMAP, actions performed on mail in the client (i.e.
> changing subjects so they're useful for archiving, creating
> mailboxes, moving mail between mailboxes) are saved to the mail on
> the server, rather than only acting on the local copies.
>
> [That's approximately correct. -Joe]

Further, with IMAP, you can do copies between accounts, so if you
really want to consolidate into a common set of folders, you can do
that on the server.

Note that this points toward a way to create a folder-based collection
of GMail mail.

(The IMAP protocol allows for "Hey, server A, copy this stuff into
account X on server B, and send it directly--don't pass it through my
mail client on the way". I don't know what if any mail clients
implement that.)

(I uncovered a long-standing bug in one of our programs a month or so
ago by accidentally copying a Spam message from my .Mac account Inbox
into the on-server Spam folder of one of my accounts on our servers.
That choked our program which sends out lists of Spam folder contents,
as the program relied on a header that our servers add but .Mac does
not.)

   --John

I've read about IMAP lots in TidBITS. I've also used it off and on. Granted, sometimes in lousy clients like Eudora. I am currently using it for my "mailing list" gmail account (the account I use for anything non-personal), using mail.app Leopard.

May I just say that I keep hearing about IMAP being a "successor" to POP. I suppose IMAP and POP do "compete" in a way, in that most people have their email set up in one way, mutually exclusively. I think it's more accurate to think of them as different technologies, each with own strengths. e.g. Omnigraffle vs ArtRage, vector vs bitmap, Illustrator vs Photoshop.

While IMAP is quite useful, I think both have their place. I prefer POP for my personal emails, and IMAP for mailing lists. But that's just me.

On Nov 7, 2007, at 2:48 AM, Brian Pearce wrote:

> But after three or four days, I was suddenly having lots of
> problems -- new mail not downloading at all, or downloading slowing
> to a crawl. (Add to that, my one remaining POP account was now,
> suddenly, similarly affected.)

I'm not using IMAP yet, but I've noticed the same thing with POP
access to my Gmail account (occasional slowness or outright access
failures). These usually happen in the late evening. I'm wondering if
they're still making significant adjustments to the IMAP system and
load balancing, and/or their load has spiked with a bunch of eager
IMAP users and they're having to add capacity, and that's what we're
seeing.

- Todd

On Nov 7, 2007, at 5:48 AM, Brian Pearce wrote:
>
> I disabled as many of the features that involved saving back to the
> server as I could (like Drafts, and Sent Mail), and I went in and
> cleaned out the dead weight from my GMail mailboxes, and the situation
> seems to have improved. But I still have these odd incidents where one
> account's Inbox will show the spinning gear -- even when there's no
> activity. And now, suddenly, my Smart Mailbox that contains only
> Unread and Flagged Messages is slow (very slow) to update.
>
> I never used IMAP under Tiger, though I've heard some complaints about
> it. I'm wondering if there's something I might have done wrong (it
> seemed odd that these problems would have taken days to materialize),
> or if this is just par for the course for Mail's handling of IMAP?

i've had similar experiences in the past few days using Gmail IMAP
with Apple Mail.

i have my own IMAP server set up on one of my computers and Mail has
always, and continues, to work fine with it so i think the problem is
with the Gmail server.

don't forget that Gmail is still beta (how many years has it been?).

> i have my own IMAP server set up on one of my computers and Mail has
> always, and continues, to work fine with it so i think the problem is
> with the Gmail server.
>
> don't forget that Gmail is still beta (how many years has it been?).

And to be honest working IMAP over a WAN link can be problematic at times.

David Ross

> i have my own IMAP server set up on one of my computers and Mail has
> always, and continues, to work fine with it so i think the problem is
> with the Gmail server.

That was my first thought -- I haven't gone so far as to try using
another program, but IMAP on my iPhone has been working as usual, so I
hadn't thought much more about it.

BRIAN PEARCE

>> But after three or four days, I was suddenly having lots of
>> problems -- new mail not downloading at all, or downloading slowing
>> to a crawl. (Add to that, my one remaining POP account was now,
>> suddenly, similarly affected.)
>
> I'm not using IMAP yet, but I've noticed the same thing with POP
> access to my Gmail account (occasional slowness or outright access
> failures). These usually happen in the late evening. I'm wondering if
> they're still making significant adjustments to the IMAP system and
> load balancing, and/or their load has spiked with a bunch of eager
> IMAP users and they're having to add capacity, and that's what we're
> seeing.

There was a piece somewhere yesterday (Wednesday), probably on Ars
Technica, possibly CNet or ComputerWorld, indicating that Google is
making a series of under-the-hood changes to gmail. They aren't
supposed to be visible except to the very sharp eyed. If, at the
upper right, to the immediate left of the Help link there is an Older
version link, you're using the newer. You could try switching to older.

I don't use my Gmail account enough to notice problems (and don't use
it from either POP or IMAP (or iPhone for that matter).

   --John

On 11/09/2007 05:48 AM, "David Ross" <drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

>> i have my own IMAP server set up on one of my computers and Mail has
>> always, and continues, to work fine with it so i think the problem is
>> with the Gmail server.
>>
>> don't forget that Gmail is still beta (how many years has it been?).
>
> And to be honest working IMAP over a WAN link can be problematic at times.

That's a client issue, not an IMAP issue. IMAP is designed to work well over
a WAN link.
 
--
John C. Welch

>>> don't forget that Gmail is still beta (how many years has it been?).
>> And to be honest working IMAP over a WAN link can be problematic at times.
>
> That's a client issue, not an IMAP issue. IMAP is designed to work well over
> a WAN link.
>
But many times does not. That was my point. Google's new IMAP might have implementation issues. Or not. We don't know and never will given Google "openness".

David

I went all-out when GMail made IMAP available -- I moved all of my
email domains over there (I had been meaning to do that for a long
time, anyway), and I set up everything in Mail, and for awhile,
everything seemed to be working well. But after three or four days, I
was suddenly having lots of problems -- new mail not downloading at
all, or downloading slowing to a crawl. (Add to that, my one remaining
POP account was now, suddenly, similarly affected.)

I disabled as many of the features that involved saving back to the
server as I could (like Drafts, and Sent Mail), and I went in and
cleaned out the dead weight from my GMail mailboxes, and the situation
seems to have improved. But I still have these odd incidents where one
account's Inbox will show the spinning gear -- even when there's no
activity. And now, suddenly, my Smart Mailbox that contains only
Unread and Flagged Messages is slow (very slow) to update.

I never used IMAP under Tiger, though I've heard some complaints about
it. I'm wondering if there's something I might have done wrong (it
seemed odd that these problems would have taken days to materialize),
or if this is just par for the course for Mail's handling of IMAP?

Any advice appreciated!

BRIAN PEARCE

Can't help, except to say that Gmail's IMAP integration isn't the same as any other IMAP integration I've used. I've been happy enough with IMAP on Mail under Tiger (and on Mail under Panther on another computer). Gmail IMAP is different. The boxes you set up on your desktop client don't match those online. Nor does Gmail accept the usual place for your inbox on Mail. Instead it creates its own. At present I'm not as happy about Gmail IMAP has I had been at first.

One exception: A friend of mine using Entourage (and Tiger) has had no problems. Go figure.

Mark Stoneman <http://onmymac.blogspot.com>

On 11/12/2007 04:04 AM, "David Ross" <drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

>>>> don't forget that Gmail is still beta (how many years has it been?).
>>> And to be honest working IMAP over a WAN link can be problematic at times.
>>
>> That's a client issue, not an IMAP issue. IMAP is designed to work well over
>> a WAN link.
>>
> But many times does not. That was my point. Google's new IMAP might have
> implementation issues. Or not. We don't know and never will given Google
> "openness".

If it doesn't, that is, 99% of the time, a client issue. With a properly
designed client, IMAP works quite well over a WAN link, because that was one
of the design criteria.

--
John C. Welch

On Nov 12, 2007, at 5:04 AM, mrstoneman wrote:

> Can't help, except to say that Gmail's IMAP integration isn't the
> same as any other IMAP integration I've used. I've been happy enough
> with IMAP on Mail under Tiger (and on Mail under Panther on another
> computer). Gmail IMAP is different. The boxes you set up on your
> desktop client don't match those online. Nor does Gmail accept the
> usual place for your inbox on Mail. Instead it creates its own. At
> present I'm not as happy about Gmail IMAP has I had been at first.

Gmail's IMAP implementation is sort of weird. IMAP folders reflect
labels online, and since an email can have more than one label, the
same email can appear in more than one folder. In addition, every
email also appears in "All Mail". There's no way to archive an email
via IMAP - if you delete it from the inbox, you actually delete it.

One work around I did for my 'unread mail' and 'received today' smart
mailboxes is to add another condition of "Mailbox is not All Mail".

I still prefer it to POP3, though.

On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:53 AM, Mike Cohen wrote:

> Gmail's IMAP implementation is sort of weird. IMAP folders reflect
> labels online, and since an email can have more than one label, the
> same email can appear in more than one folder. In addition, every
> email also appears in "All Mail". There's no way to archive an email
> via IMAP - if you delete it from the inbox, you actually delete it.

It appears like Google is setting up IMAP to perform like a mail
librarian, rather than a post office box system. Sort of like we are
getting used to treating other kinds of data; photos, music, etc.

Jeffrey

On 16-Nov-07, at 8:53 AM, Mike Cohen wrote:
> There's no way to archive an email
> via IMAP - if you delete it from the inbox, you actually delete it.

If you want to empty your Inbox then just move the messages somewhere
else. Dragging them to the Gmail/All Mail folder is equivalent to
clicking Gmail's "Archive" button.

I am glad Delete still means delete. ;-)

Robert McGonegal