Gmail is an excellent webmail. It has great features, brilliant performance and amazing usability. However, there is a lack of some important features, like offline storage (Since google gears is no longer supported), S/MIME and GPG encryption.

Apple Mail is a great email client for mac, including a beautiful interface and good usability. However it has no gmail’s like conversation, which in muy opinion is the best gmail’s feature. On the other hand, Apple Mail has offline storage support and S/MIME and GPG encryption.

After a long research, I found a very good setup which brings very good features to Mail.app, turning this client a very interesting alternative to Google Mail. Another good thing about this setup is that you can use both alternatives at the same time, and then enjoy the features they offer. So, let’s start.

Step 1: Enabling IMAP for Gmail

Open Gmail and then click the ‘Settings‘ link in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Click on the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP‘ tab, and then enable IMAP. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Save Changes‘ button.

Basically, now the Gmail part of this setup is done.

Step 2: Setting up Mail.app

Open Mail.app. If it is the first time you open Mail.app, you will be guided through a setup wizard.

If you have already used Mail.app, you have to add another account. To do that, click ‘Mail‘ on the top menu bar and select ‘Preferences…‘. Click the Accounts tab and click the ‘+‘ button to add a new account.

From this point, the setup process is the same for both ‘First Time Mail.app setup instructions’ and ‘adding another account instructions’.

In the wizard, enter your Full Name, Email Address and Password and click the ‘Continue‘ button. After clicking continue, your account will be configured (if you are an google apps user, you will have to insert some other details: account type – IMAP; incoming mail server – ‘imap.gmail.com‘; user name – ‘<your full email address>’; password; outgoing mail server – ‘smtp.gmail.com‘).

Now your account is configured, but it is very important to make further setup adjusts to improve the Gmail-Mail.app integration.

Step 3: Improving Mail.app setup for Gmail accounts

Click ‘Mail‘ on the top menu bar and select ‘Preferences…‘. Click the Accounts tab and select your Gmail account. Now, click on the ‘Mailbox Behaviors‘ tab and check the all the checkboxes (‘Store draft messages on the server‘, ‘Store sent messages on the server‘, ‘Store junk messages on the server‘, ‘Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox‘, and ‘Store deleted messages on the server‘).

In the same tab, change ‘Delete sent messages when:‘, ‘Delete junk messages when:‘, and ‘Permanently erase deleted messages when:‘ settings to ‘Never‘.

In the ‘Advanced‘ tab and change the ‘IMAP Path Prefix‘ to ‘[Gmail]‘ if your account is @gmail.com or [Google Mail] if you account is @googlemail.com.

IMPORTANT: After you set [Gmail] (or [Google Mail]) as IMAP Prefix, all of your custom labels will not be visible in Apple Mail. If you want them vibible again, you have to rename those labels using Gmail, inserting the prefix “[Gmail]/” (or [Google Mail]) (ex: for a label called “example” you have to rename it to “[Gmail]/example”).

Last tip in this step (optional): If you have multiple email addresses you use in your gmail, you can configure Mail to let you choose which email you want to use. Go to your Account Information Tab and in the Email Address field, add all of the account’s associated addresses separated by a comma.

Close your Mail preferences.

Step 4: Associating folders of Mail.app to Gmail Imap

Now it is time to map Mail folders to Gmail IMAP folders. So, click on the ‘Trash‘ folder, then click on the Mailbox menu item in the menubar at the top of the screen, choose ‘Use This Mailbox For‘ and select ‘Trash‘.

You have to repeat the same steps for Drafts, Sent Mail and Spam folders. Click on the ‘Drafts‘ folder, click Mailbox menu -> ‘Use This Mailbox For‘ -> ‘Drafts‘. Click on the ‘Sent Mail‘ folder, click the Mailbox menu -> ‘Use This Mailbox For‘ -> ‘Sent‘. Click on the ‘Spam‘ folder, click the Mailbox menu -> ‘Use This Mailbox For‘ -> ‘Junk‘.

Now your folders are mapped

Step 5: Emulating Gmail Conversation in Mail

There is a way to “emulate” a Gmail like conversation. You only have to create a New Smart Mailbox by click Mailbox menu and choosing New Smart Mailbox.

In the Smart Mailbox Name, type ‘Conversations’. In ‘Contains’, select ‘messages’ and in ‘that match’ select ‘any’.

In the conditions, add two conditions: 1) ‘Message is in Mailbox’ -> ‘Inbox’; 2) ‘Message is in Mailbox’ -> ‘Sent’;

Check ‘Include messages from Sent’.

Now, go to menu “View” and select “Organize by Thread” and you will have a conversation view in your Mail. The only odd of this workaround, is that all of your sent messages (even those without a reply) will appear in this box. In my case, that was actually good to clean my box

Step 6: “Fixing” attachments sent using Mail.app

Depending on the file type you are attaching using Apple Mail, the attachment will be added inline other than as an real attachment. This is not always good, since most email client insert (and expect to receive) attachments at the end of message. If you want to send your files always as an attachment, do the following: Go to menu “Edit -> Attachments” and select the “Always Insert Attachments at end of Message” item.

Now every time you attach a file, it will be attached to the email, not inline.

Final remarks

This is the setup I’ve been using in my Mail. I’m very happy with the integration so far. I hope you like it too.

Another thing that might improve the usability of Mail is a plugin called Letterbox, which splits the interface into two vertical columns (one with the email list and other with the content). If you are using a widescreen monitor, I strongly recommend using it! Check the website http://harnly.net/software/letterbox for more information. Here is an screenshot of this plugin in action:

That’s it for today. I hope you like it. And please share this post by clicking the link below

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