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Gmail -All Mail folder

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mro
mro Posts: 813 Forumite
Tenth Anniversary 500 Posts Combo Breaker
edited 25 June 2018 at 3:11PM in Techie Stuff
In Gmail, what is the All Mail folder ?


It seems to have duplicates of emails, or is it just another view of other folders, like Inbox, Sent together ?

Incoming emails go to Inbox, copy of outgoing emails go Sent, why have All Mail folder, what does it do, how does it work ?

I want to know how it works, so I know which emails I can keep & which I can safely delete including duplicate emails.

So I don't delete wrong emails.
.

Comments

  • pramsay13
    pramsay13 Posts: 2,143 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Are you using a mobile app?
    The only place I have an all mail folder is on my gmail app and all mail is the inbox for both of my gmail accounts.
    If I delete from there they will be deleted from the individual inbox so don't delete unless you want rid of an email. That said you can still retrieve from the bin if you delete by accident.
  • mro
    mro Posts: 813 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    pramsay13 wrote: »
    Are you using a mobile app?
    The only place I have an all mail folder is on my gmail app and all mail is the inbox for both of my gmail accounts.
    If I delete from there they will be deleted from the individual inbox so don't delete unless you want rid of an email. That said you can still retrieve from the bin if you delete by accident.
    No, it shows online on laptop.
  • Tom99
    Tom99 Posts: 5,371 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Second Anniversary
    Looks like All mail is everything as you suggest. Just click the 'less' button and it will disappear
  • mro
    mro Posts: 813 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    I deleted a load of emails from Sent folder, I then deleted these from Trash folder.

    I then did Search of emails and there were still same group of emails in my All Mail folder.

    Not sure what is going on.
  • mro
    mro Posts: 813 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    Tom99 wrote: »
    Looks like All mail is everything as you suggest. Just click the 'less' button and it will disappear
    Where is Less button ?
  • Tom99
    Tom99 Posts: 5,371 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Second Anniversary
    mro wrote: »
    Where is Less button ?

    On the left:

    Inbox
    Starred
    Sent mail
    Drafts
    More/Less
  • pramsay13
    pramsay13 Posts: 2,143 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Are you using mail.google.com?
  • Cash-Strapped.T32
    Cash-Strapped.T32 Posts: 562 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 25 June 2018 at 6:30PM
    mro wrote: »
    In Gmail, what is the All Mail folder ?


    It seems to have duplicates of emails, or is it just another view of other folders, like Inbox, Sent together ?

    Incoming emails go to Inbox, copy of outgoing emails go Sent, why have All Mail folder, what does it do, how does it work ?

    .

    Exactly - gmail doesn't actually use folders (don't ask me why, presumbly too old-school), it uses labels.
    When you open a "folder", all you're doing is toggling-off all emails without the corresponding label, and toggling-on the emails that do have it.

    Essentially the same thing as storing them in a folder.
    In theory , it means you can add multiple labels to a particular email, and thus have it show in multiple "folders", without the confusion of actually saving duplicates in multiple folders (and think about how confusing that could get if you had more than one copy of an email and one version has more replies than the other, etc...)

    So, "all mail", simply shows all email, regardless of what label it has - essentially the same thing as say for instance, outlook does, when you use the same option (although outlook does specifically use folders and that's why I chose it as an example :)).

    Make things any clearer?
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