[Gmail] Folder - What is it??!!

[MJW]

Afternoon all - Just changed my sky email from POP to IMAP and configured outlook accordingly.

I am confused with the Gmail folder that has appeared. Contained within the folder are sub folders as follows -

[Gmail]
- All Mail
- Drafts
- Sent Mail
- Spam
- Starred
- Trash

I currently have 1800 mails in the 'all mail' folder but I cannot delete them?!

Can someone explain what purpose these folders serve and how I can delete the information in the all mail folder?

[TheVoyager]

Well the first thing you don't want to do is delete anything from the 'All Mail' folder, this is just a replicate of all the other folders added together, using IMAP there is no real need to delete any email, as it is always kept on the Server and not on your machine.

In Outlook if you have not already done so, you can create folders yourself, and then create rules so that you can file the messages in some sort of order. e.g: Mail from friends could go into a folder called Personal or Friends etc., these would still show in the 'All Mail' folder as well as the Personal/Friends folder and it is in these folders that you create that it is best to delete from, if really required, when you do delete them they will then move to the trash folder, so they will still show up in the 'All Mail' folder.

ONLY when you empty the trash folder will the messages go for good and stop showing up in the 'All Mail' folder.

Hope that helps
- Drafts < messages that you create and do not send BUT ARE SAVED
- Sent Mail < messages that you have sent
- Spam < Gmail is pretty good at sorting out the crap mail and anything here can normally be deleted (a quick check of the headers just to make sure)
- Starred < I don't know if many people use this folder anymore now that Gmail has IMAP, it was used for tagging certain emails

Don't try deleting any of the folders under [GMail] they will only reappear.

Afternoon all - Just changed my sky email from POP to IMAP and configured outlook accordingly.

I am confused with the Gmail folder that has appeared. Contained within the folder are sub folders as follows -

[Gmail]
- All Mail
- Drafts
- Sent Mail
- Spam
- Starred
- Trash

I currently have 1800 mails in the 'all mail' folder but I cannot delete them?!

Can someone explain what purpose these folders serve and how I can delete the information in the all mail folder?

[NickS]

Whatever email client you are using, you should set the all mail folder to not download emails, you will still see the headers if you click on the folder but if you download the mail it will all be duplicated. The folders in your email client are equivalent to the labels in the webmail - deleting an email from the folder simply removes that label it does not delete the email from all mail, it is the same as archiving in webmail. I have set up a number of email clients using trial and error and got some to work better than others, and of course a lot is personal preference. Which client are you using?

[DrFish]

Just a quick question on the back of this.

Google offer a service via advanced IMAP controls Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Advanced IMAP Controls that can flag an email deleted by Outlook 2007 to go direct to [gmail]/trash

However, in order to do this (under gmail) you need to enable the LAB tool mentioned in the article, and configure it.

I have successfully done this with my gmail accounts; but I cannot find any trace of the google lab under Sky - if indeed it exists.

Any suggestions ?

[PaulSky]

Sky uses google apps and I do not think the Labs components are available outside a full blown Gmail account until they come out of beta and go into full usage.