How to Use an M2 Label to Archive a Message in Gmail IMAP

With Gmail IMAP, under the you@gmail.com access point in the mail panel, you can archive a message by dragging it from the IMAP folder view it's in to the "[Gmail]/All Mail" IMAP folder view.

If you don't have an IMAP trash folder set on the IMAP tab in the account's properties (you have to goto mail.google.com and uncheck "show in IMAP" for "Trash" and "[Gmail]/Trash" for it to stick), you can also archive a message by just pressing DEL or SHIFT + DEL in an IMAP folder view (except for "[Gmail]/Trash" and "[Gmail]/Spam") .

But, if you do have an IMAP trash folder set (the default) and you don't feel like dragging to "[Gmail]/All Mail" all the time, there is a workaround you can use.

* Create a label named "Archive".

* Right-click on the label and goto properties.

* Switch to the IMAP tab and set the keyword to "\Deleted" (minus quotes).

Then, whenever you want to archive a message, just apply the "Archive" label to the message via the label drop-down in the message list or by right-clicking and labeling the message as "Archive".

Originally posted by burnout426:

But, if you do have an IMAP trash folder set (the default) and you don't feel like dragging to "[Gmail]/All Mail" all the time, there is a workaround you can use.

* Create a label named "Archive".

* Right-click on the label and goto properties.

* Switch to the IMAP tab and set the keyword to "\Deleted" (minus quotes).

1) Why do you use the keyword \Deleted?

2) How do you remove the label to No label?

3) How do you remove then the Archives-labeled items from view?
This is how I use Gmail, I only have the messages waiting for a reply or important to me in the current view, everything else is either in the trash or in the archives

My screen being small, I only use the List only view. When I click on a message a new tab opens.

Another question:
4) Why are some messages still in bold characters although I have read them?

Thank you for your time and patience

Originally posted by aneblanc:

Why do you use the keyword \Deleted?

By design, when a client adds the \Deleted IMAP flag to a message, it issues an archive. ("Archive" means to remove the gmail label the message is in. "Inbox" is a label too.)

IMAP keywords are user-defined flags. See <http://my.opera.com/operawiki/forums/topic.dml?id=1132942> for more info. But, Opera's IMAP keyword input field in the account's properties has a bug where it allows regular flags. You can then use this to your advantage to apply the flag \Deleted to messages by applying a label with \Deleted set for the IMAP keyword.

Originally posted by aneblanc:

2) How do you remove the label to No label?

When you apply this special Opera label to a message, Gmail archives the message and deletes the *copy* in the Gmail label. This means the Opera "Archive" label won't ever have any messages in it (except if you were to issue it on messages in "[Gmail]/Trash" and you had "show trash" set for the Opera label).

This means you never have to remove the Opera label from messages after you apply it.

Originally posted by aneblanc:

3) How do you remove then the Archives-labeled items from view?

Make sure you're only using the you@gmail.com access point to view your messages. By design, Opera's views like All Messages/Unread and "All Messages/Received" only show the copies of messages that are in "[Gmail]/All Mail". As in, Opera's views only show archived messages. Copies of those messages that are in the "Inbox' IMAP folder and other Gmail label IMAP foldres are hidden unless you check "show hidden" for an Opera view and check "show duplicates".

See the "Why are there multiple copies of messages in M2?" section at <http://operawiki.info/GmailIMAP> (outdated page, but still good read) for why Gmail and IMAP work this way.

Originally posted by aneblanc:

My screen being small, I only use the List only view. When I click on a message a new tab opens.

That's fine. You can do that. shouldn't affect anything with archiving.

Originally posted by aneblanc:

Another question:
4) Why are some messages still in bold characters although I have read them?

Please ask this in the mail forum at <http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=32> as it's off topic for this tutorial page.