Gmail question

[Hokiefyd]

I'm testing Thunderbird with my Gmail account. The IMAP piece works fine; email syncs. I even downloaded the gContactSync add-on to keep my contacts sync'd with Thunderbird's address book. Cool!

But I hate how Gmail keeps these odd folders. There are "Important" and "Starred" folders. Oh, and not to forget the silly "All Mail" folder. I sent a message to myself from my work address and it appeared in both the Inbox and in the Gmail\Important folder. I could delete it out of the Gmail\Important folder, but it remains in the Inbox. Does that mean that those other folders are COPIES of email messages or shortcuts to the actual message? It looks like they're completely extraneous and I could delete every "message" out of them and the actual email itself wouldn't be deleted.

I ask because Thunderbird's churning and churning on sync'ing these Gmail\All Mail and Gmail\Important folders...

Thanks.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
There are "Important" and "Starred" folders. Oh, and not to forget the silly "All Mail" folder. I sent a message to myself from my work address and it appeared in both the Inbox and in the Gmail\Important folder. I could delete it out of the Gmail\Important folder, but it remains in the Inbox.


From within the Gmail web interface you can choose to NOT show these folders. Get into your Settings and go to the Labels tab.

IMAP will keep your local and cloud-based email synced.

 

[dparm]

Just tell Thunderbird not to sync the All Mail folder.

Frankly, I would just drop Thunderbird entirely. I did this about two years ago and have been using the web interface ever since. No regrets -- it's immensely powerful.

 

[EddieCairns]

It's very difficult to come away from the security blanket of having copies of all your email on your machine when you are not on the net as has been happening for 20 years.

In reality it is only there until you get a disk crash as who really do backup!

Then when you accept it is all on the net, the whole thing just gets easier.

eddie

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: dparm
Frankly, I would just drop Thunderbird entirely.


That's probably what I SHOULD do. I like the idea of "offline" email, and don't particularly care for Gmail's web interface. I may end up just living with it (the web interface).

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: dparm
Frankly, I would just drop Thunderbird entirely.


That's probably what I SHOULD do. I like the idea of "offline" email, and don't particularly care for Gmail's web interface. I may end up just living with it (the web interface).



There is a Gmail Offline plugin for Chrome.

Also, the web interface is customizable through plugins, the advanced settings, extensions, and themes.

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted By: EddieCairns
It's very difficult to come away from the security blanket of having copies of all your email on your machine when you are not on the net as has been happening for 20 years.

In reality it is only there until you get a disk crash as who really do backup!

Then when you accept it is all on the net, the whole thing just gets easier.

eddie




Exactly. Why should I waste 5GB+ of hard drive space to keep local copies? It's Google's problem to keep it safe, not mine.

Anything truly important can be duplicated and saved elsewhere if you really think you need it.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Exactly. Why should I waste 5GB+ of hard drive space to keep local copies? It's Google's problem to keep it safe, not mine. [/quote

Until they lose your email, then, if you're really lucky, you'll receive a "We're sorry about your account" email from Google. It will be gone.


They don't worry about keeping it safe. Heck, they data mine thru every bit of it to sell advertising and other services.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: dparm
There is a Gmail Offline plugin for Chrome.


I did use that for a while. I found Google software to be very resource-heavy. The offline plugin wants to keep Chrome running all the time in the background, which often consumes over 100 MB of RAM. Not necessarily a problem with our desktop (4 GB), but I have a few laptops, and one of them has 1 GB of RAM. I like to keep everything consistent, or at least as consistent as I can. I have recently been using Firefox and I like that better than Chrome. Firefox has a nicer interface and seems to run a little snappier than Chrome, especially in Linux.

Originally Posted By: dparm
Also, the web interface is customizable through plugins, the advanced settings, extensions, and themes.


I've played with the themes, but that's about it. I'll look into more customization features of the web interface. Thanks.