If you’re using Mac Mail and have a Gmail account, you should probably follow a few simples steps to get the Gmail account integrated into Mac Mail. This article will go through how to setup Gmail in Mac Mail as an IMAP account.

First you should understand the difference between IMAP and POP3 mail accounts. When you set up your email account as a POP3 account, you’ll be downloading full copies of the messages from the server, and in many cases after download, the messages will be removed from the server. This approach is best if you really only use one computer, which can hold all your mail.

But if you’re like me, then you may work from multiple computers, from multiple locations, and you may even use your phone for email. Enter IMAP.

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. That makes sense, huh? The real beauty of IMAP is that you can access mail from multiple locations, and as opposed to POP3, your inbox and other mail folders will all be synchronized. That’s the main benefit of using IMAP. Rather than have multiple copies of your email messages (as with POP3) across multiple computers or devices, using IMAP is a great way to keep your email account synched across all your devices.

After creating the mail account

After you create the new Gmail account in Mac Mail.app, make sure to set the IMAP prefix. You can find this field under Mail > Preferences. Choose the Gmail account, and then visit the Advanced tab. You’ll see a field titled IMAP Path Prefix. Enter [Gmail]. (Yours may be [Gmail account] or something similar). Then close mail preferences and click Save when it asks.

Now you’ll see the account in the left column of Mail.app’s interface. You’ll also see several folders, including the common folders

• Drafts
• Sent Messages
• Deleted Messages
• Spam

You next need to tell Mac Mail.app to use these folders for its common tasks.

1. Select the Gmail account’s Drafts folder
2. Click the top menu Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Drafts

After this you’ll notice that the folder disappears from the Gmail section; it’s now located up top with the rest of your mail accounts. This means that Mac Mail is treating the folder as your primary Drafts folder, at least for your Gmail account. So if you’re writing an email from your Gmail account and you save a draft, then you’ll be able to access it via this folder. Additionally if you visit the Gmail webmail interface, you’ll notice that the draft is also located in Gmail’s default Drafts folder. Cool! Seems to be working.

Now repeat the above steps for the other folders

• Sent Messages > Sent
• Deleted Messages > Trash
• Spam > Junk

That should do it! Your Gmail account is now integrated nicely with Mac Mail.app.

If you’re still having trouble or want to look a bit deeper into it, I’d suggest starting at this very helpful post on 5ThirtyOne.