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I have an email account with more emails in the Mail folder than can be accounted for in my archives and the Sent and Inbox folders. I find this confusing.

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  • Last reply by Yu5tiqX9og

muh
muh
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This is a question about the All Mail folder and the Important folder. I wasn't able to find out in the documentation.

There are more emails in the All Mail and Important folders than can be accounted for in my archives, send and received folders. I counted 545 in my archives. I have 14 in my inbox and 51 in sent mail. I therefore have 610 emails in total. The Trash is empty.

There are 852 emails in the All Mail folder, and 550 in Important. The totals don't match up to anything. I find this confusing.

In the Important folder, only 2 are actually tagged as Important. What are all of the other emails doing there? Can I safely delete them? If any of them are also in my archives, will they also be deleted from there, or are they safe? Does the same go for the All Mail folder?

This is a question about the All Mail folder and the Important folder. I wasn't able to find out in the documentation. There are more emails in the All Mail and Important folders than can be accounted for in my archives, send and received folders. I counted 545 in my archives. I have 14 in my inbox and 51 in sent mail. I therefore have 610 emails in total. The Trash is empty. There are 852 emails in the All Mail folder, and 550 in Important. The totals don't match up to anything. I find this confusing. In the Important folder, only 2 are actually tagged as Important. What are all of the other emails doing there? Can I safely delete them? If any of them are also in my archives, will they also be deleted from there, or are they safe? Does the same go for the All Mail folder?

All Replies (2)

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
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Messages stay in All Mail, even after they are deleted. I can't speak for important.

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Yu5tiqX9og
Yu5tiqX9og
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The following links might be helpful:

1. Thunderbird and Gmail https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail

Quotation from the above link:

There is also a set of special sub-folders for the [Gmail] folder: All Mail: contains all the messages of your Gmail account, including sent and archived messages. Any messages that you see in the inbox will also appear in the [Gmail]/All Mail folder. (It is recommended to unsubscribe this folder.) Important: contains messages that Gmail has flagged as “important”. (See Priority Inbox overview for more details about this Gmail feature.)

2. Importance markers in Gmail https://support.google.com/mail/answer/186543

Quotation from the above link:

Gmail uses several signals to decide which messages to automatically mark as important, including: - Whom you email, and how often you email them - Which emails you open - Which emails you reply to - Keywords that are in emails you usually read - Which emails you star, archive, or delete

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