This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Is there a way to get Thunderbird to move and delete emails from Gmail?

  • 2 cavab
  • 0 have this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by technomad

more options

As has been asked all over the web. I can move emails from GMail to a local folder but all it does it remove the Inbox label in Gmail and the message stays in All Mail.

Why doesn't it copy that message to the local folder and then move it to Bin/Trash?

As has been asked all over the web. I can move emails from GMail to a local folder but all it does it remove the Inbox label in Gmail and the message stays in All Mail. Why doesn't it copy that message to the local folder and then move it to Bin/Trash?

All Replies (2)

more options

Helpful?

more options

Thanks for the reply but I am not sure if you understood the question.

I have worked out how to achieve my goal using only Thunderbird.

In Thunderbird I create a folder within the GMail account called stagingpost. I find all the emails using quick filter or whatever and have them selected. I move them to staging post which really is just removing the inbox label and adding a stagingpost label. I copy all the emails in stagingpost to the local folder. I delete all the emails in stagingpost and empty bin/trash as and when.

Now I have the messages "backed up" locally.

I have tested this in a new Thunderbird profile with a GMail account with under 100 messsages. I would love someone to test this method as I need to perform it on two family members' GMail accounts who are running out of storage and have 20 and 30 thousands messages in their All Mail folder.

Modified by technomad

Helpful?

Sual ver

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.