How do I prevent re-download of "All Mail" (Gmail)

[DSperber]

I can't figure out how to make this work. Need precise instructions from someone.

I have a Gmail account, and use Thunderbird on my PC. There is an accumulation of about 66,000 messages in my "All Mail" folder. I have performed the recommended technique to limit the contents of this folder, by right-click -> Properties -> retention policy -> uncheck "use my account settings" -> check "delete messages more than" 90 days old.

I then pushed the "compact" function for the folder. It appeared that about 61,000 messages disappeared. Good.

But then, for some inexplicable reason, all of the just-deleted messages began re-downloading from the Gmail server! This is BAD, and isn't what I wanted. The explanation for the retention policy is that it's supposed to delete messages from both the Gmail server as well as the local Thunderbird database, but this does not appear to be happening.

Is there something I need to do up in my Gmail settings? Is there something else I need to do in Thunderbird to accomplish the deletion of these 61,000 unwanted emails that keep re-downloading and showing up no matter that I keep deleting them via Thunderbird (either manually with "delete" or automatically through retention policy setting)?


Also, there previously was an "IMPORTANT" folder showing in Thunderbird, with what I believe was where all of these old emails actually showed up. For some reason, the "IMPORTANT" folder has now disappeared in Thunderbird but all of the old emails have simply moved into "All Mail"

Please help. Thanks.

[DSperber]

Additional attempt at solution, which again failed to work as expected.

Looking at another thread by another user which complained of exactly the same problem I'm complaining of, there was a suggested solution of going to the Gmail site and changing the settings about what to do with deleted messages:

"You need to change a setting on the Gmail web page. By default, when you delete a Gmail message using an email client, Gmail will archive the message, moving it to the All Messages folder. Change the option "When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:" to either "Move the message to Trash" or "Immediately delete the message forever."

I did what I believe was being suggested, namely Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP, where the status shows "IMAP is enabled".

I now have "when I mark a message in IMAP is deleted" set to "Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server."

And I also now have "When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder" set to "Immediately delete the message forever".

Once again, about 60,000 messages disappeared in Thunderbird's "All mail" folder, but then once again re-downloaded.


If "Gmail/All Mail" is supposed to be the Gmail archive for all email ever sent or received, how in the world do I ever purge anything from it???

[DSperber]

Interesting. With the new Gmail IMAP "deleted" settings I noted above, I can now manually delete messages through Thunderbird in the "All Mail" folder... and they seem to mostly remain deleted. I'm now down to 58,900 messages in "All Mail".

Now for some reason 1300 messages re-downloaded. I don't know why only 1300 got re-downloaded and not everything I just manually deleted.

Anyway, I will try to continue manually deleting and see if I can have success.

[DSperber]

Well, that seems to have been the secret!

I managed to manually delete 64,000 messages... and they remained deleted. No more re-downloading!

So I'm now down to 2000 messages.

I guess the changes to Gmail Settings as I described above (suggested from that other thread) turns out to genuinely be the solution.

Hopefully, case closed.