GMail IMAP - Use with caution

[Dr Q]

Hi,

Just wanted to share my experience, which initially is dissappointing,

What I did was create a new IMAP account for my GMail and kept my
existing account for POP access to GMail.

I ended up deleting the IMAP account because Entourage upon receiving
the messages in the IMAP folders (inbox and any labels you might have)
moved them to my local inbox. I was fortunate that I only accessed my
inbox and one of my labels because upon accessing them through the
IMAP via Entourage, the messages in the Inbox that were already in my
local inbox were duplicated in my local inbox and the labels removed
on the GMail server.

The good news is that the messages on the GMail server were not lost
but the labels for the inbox and the other label I accessed were
removed.

I was fortunate I only had a few messages affected. If you have a lot
of messages, I advise caution until someone can explain why the labels
were removed.

At this point I am not sure which side to blame. The removal of labels
could be caused by GMail or by Entourage or maybe the interaction of
the two.

If anyone can explain this behavior, I would love to hear it. Please
note I did check for rules and mailing list manager to see if
something was created to cause this behavior and I still have no rules
in any of the tabs and only one mailing list manager rule.

 

[Dr Q]

Hi,

Just wanted to share my experience, which initially is dissappointing,

What I did was create a new IMAP account for my GMail and kept my
existing account for POP access to GMail.

I ended up deleting the IMAP account because Entourage upon receiving
the messages in the IMAP folders (inbox and any labels you might have)
moved them to my local inbox. I was fortunate that I only accessed my
inbox and one of my labels because upon accessing them through the
IMAP via Entourage, the messages in the Inbox that were already in my
local inbox were duplicated in my local inbox and the labels removed
on the GMail server.

The good news is that the messages on the GMail server were not lost
but the labels for the inbox and the other label I accessed were
removed.

I was fortunate I only had a few messages affected. If you have a lot
of messages, I advise caution until someone can explain why the labels
were removed.

At this point I am not sure which side to blame. The removal of labels
could be caused by GMail or by Entourage or maybe the interaction of
the two.

If anyone can explain this behavior, I would love to hear it. Please
note I did check for rules and mailing list manager to see if
something was created to cause this behavior and I still have no rules
in any of the tabs and only one mailing list manager rule.

Just a bit of an update. In an attempt to isolate the behavior, I
created a new mail identity in Entourage and then connected to the
GMail IMAP servers and I did not encounter a problem with messages
moving to the local inbox and labels being removed on the GMail
server.

So perhaps my experience is due to the interaction of having the POP
and IMAP GMail accounts at the same time in Entourage?

 

[Dr Q]

Just a bit of an update. In an attempt to isolate the behavior, I
created a new mail identity in Entourage and then connected to the
GMail IMAP servers and I did not encounter a problem with messages
moving to the local inbox and labels being removed on the GMail
server.

So perhaps my experience is due to the interaction of having the POP
and IMAP GMail accounts at the same time in Entourage?

So I tried another experiment based on the apparent success of my last
one.

This time, I used a backup copy of my existing identity as the
starting point instead of a new one. Then I first deleted my POP based
account for GMail, then I created an account for IMAP access to GMail.

This time (as before) when I accessed my GMail Inbox, the messages
from the GMail Inbox were moved to my local inbox.

I checked for any new rules and new mailing list manager rules, and
nothing new was created. I still have no rules and one mailing list
manager rule.

If anyone has any ideas as to why what may be causing Entourage to
move the messages to the local inbox, let me know I will be happy to
try some new tests to see how things work.