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How Do I Stop Downloading Old Emails To My Mac?

I am adding my Outlook and Gmail account to mail app. Once added, it is starting to download all the mails from outlook and gmail servers from the beginning. It already downloaded almost 4GB data. I am trying to find the solution to stop this or at least limit the download.

1. How do I stop downloading mails form the servers, or limits them (ex: download early 3 months mails only)
2. How to clear those 4GB storage from Mac storage?

I highly appreciate if one can provide the solution. Thanks.
—–
Manjula

Comments: 3 Responses to “How Do I Stop Downloading Old Emails To My Mac?”

    2 years ago

    There is a setting for exactly this in Google's Gmail. You have to log into Gmail in your web browser to get to the settings. To find them:

    1. Click Settings (gear icon) in the upper right corner.
    2. Select See All Settings.
    3. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab at the top.
    4. Look for Folder Size Limits and then check "Limit IMAP folders to contain no more than this many messages."
    5. Select 1000, 2000, 5000 or 10000.
    6. Click Save Changes.

    Then just click the Get New Messages In All Accounts button in your Mail app on your Mac and leave it alone for a while. It will take some time to re-sync everything so be patient. You can choose Window, Activity if you want to see how it is going.

    Unfortunately, I don't think there is a similar setting for Outlook.

    Rebecca Comer
    2 years ago

    My iPhone 13 pro max and my new MacBook Air keeps downloading thousands of old mail. How do I stop this. My account is not @gmail.com

    2 years ago

    Rebecca: Sounds like they are just syncing with your email account.

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