Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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.

Avatar for Username

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

Denc nañu waxtaan wii. Yónneel yeneen laaj soo soxlaa ndimbal.

How to delete all "copies" (labels) of message in Gmail

  • 3 tontu
  • 1 am na jafe-jafe bii
  • 1 view
  • i mujjee tontu mooy Matt

Cara_M
Cara_M
more options

The document here titled "Thunderbird and Gmail" says "Note that a message can have multiple labels (for instance, "Personal", "Travel", "All Mail" and "Starred"). In this case, a single copy of this message will be downloaded, but it will be displayed in all the corresponding Thunderbird folders."

I'm not finding this to be the case. I have multiple Gmail accounts sync'd to Thunderbird as imap accounts. I am tired of having to clean up multiple copies. If an email from Gmail comes into the inbox and I delete it from the Inbox - it STAYS in AllMail/Archive. If I delete from AllMail/Archive, it stays in Inbox.

Am I misunderstanding how this works, or have I missed the setting that makes this work? I've attached a screenshot from one account's Server Settings.

The document here titled "Thunderbird and Gmail" says "Note that a message can have multiple labels (for instance, "Personal", "Travel", "All Mail" and "Starred"). In this case, a single copy of this message will be downloaded, but it will be displayed in all the corresponding Thunderbird folders." I'm not finding this to be the case. I have multiple Gmail accounts sync'd to Thunderbird as imap accounts. I am tired of having to clean up multiple copies. If an email from Gmail comes into the inbox and I delete it from the Inbox - it STAYS in AllMail/Archive. If I delete from AllMail/Archive, it stays in Inbox. Am I misunderstanding how this works, or have I missed the setting that makes this work? I've attached a screenshot from one account's Server Settings.
Nataali seetu yiñ ci takkaale

All Replies (3)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

I follow the advice given here (Labels section), to not use the Gmail Trash but instead 'Just mark it as deleted', and also to not subscribe to All Mail (All Mail section). Does that simplify things for you?

Cara_M
Cara_M Ki laajte
more options

I will check the link - but i archive to “all mail” and clean it out periodically- so i need to see it.

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

All mail is the archive. If you delete a message, Thunderbird will move it to the trash folder and gmail will remove it 30 days later from the folder pursuant of their retention policies. Perhaps you just need to be more patient with the clunky IMAP implementation GMail use.