ipad air mail app eating all my space

DMcL1971

I have just bought my first ever Apple device (iPad Air 16GB WiFi).

I am having a problem with the pre-installed Mail App. I have added my Gmail account to the mail app on the iPad. But it seems that whenever I choose a folder to view within the app it goes and downloads a copy of every mail in that folder from Gmail, therefore taking up a lot of space.

All I have done so far is look at a few of my folders and I have already used up 9GB of space on my 16GB iPad. My Gmail account is currently at 20GB and growing. So, if I view another couple of folders my iPad will be full.

Is there any way to stop the mail app from downloading a copy of every mail in my Gmail account?

I don't know about Gmail but with Outlook.com and MS Exchange accounts you can specify how far back the messages are downloaded. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select your account. See if you have a "Mail Days to Sync" option there.

DMcL1971

Karsini wrote: »

I don't know about Gmail but with Outlook.com and MS Exchange accounts you can specify how far back the messages are downloaded. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select your account. See if you have a "Mail Days to Sync" option there.

There is no option for "Mail Days to Sync" where you indicated. I did a bit of googling and it seems things have changed in IOS7 so that option is not there anymore.

DMcL1971

DMcL1971 wrote: »

There is no option for "Mail Days to Sync" where you indicated. I did a bit of googling and it seems things have changed in IOS7 so that option is not there anymore.

It's there on my iPhone 5S on iOS 7.0.6. May not be supported on Gmail accounts.

DMcL1971

You might be right, I am also on iOS 7.0.6.

jamesd

Maybe swap to the gmail app?

DMcL1971

jamesd wrote: »

Maybe swap to the gmail app?

OK. I have tried that and it is certainly better. Whereas the pre-installed mail app downloads the entire contents of a folder upon first viewing. The Gmail app only downloads a chunk of the mails from the folder. If you scroll to the bottom it will download another chunk. This will sort the problem for the short term. But ultimately over the years either of these apps is going to continue to grow and eat up more space.

Unless someone has a solution to this it seems that I will just have to view my Gmail account through the Safari web browser. As that seems to be the only way to use my email account without filling up my iPad.

Deep Thought

you need to go into your gmail account and in settings, forwarding and POP/IMAP and you tell it what to do.

You can tell it to download all mail, new mail etc...i

I have enabled POP and IMAP

POP is set to download mail from a particular date

and I have told it to keep on the gmail server when accessed via POP

for IMAP autoexpunge on and then archive when its expunged.

Do this via laptop