How do you keep Gmail messages while clearing them off your phone?

[JSmith125]

I've been all over this and other forums hoping to find this answer, but every related discussion I find is about something slightly different from what I want to do. My principal e-mail is a Gmail account. Normally I work in it through a browser or a Thunderbird client on my computer, NOT through my phone. But I installed Gmail on my phone so I could occasionally check e-mail from other locations. I repeat, it is not my usual way of checking e-mail.

The problem is that the e-mail messages that have accumulated are taking up all my phone's memory. I don't need any of them stored on the phone and would like to delete them all. HOWEVER, I want to do this without deleting them from my Gmail account. I would like to delete them from the phone but still have them all right where i left them if I check Gmail through Chrome, Thunderbird, etc. In other words, I want to make deletions from the phone that do not propagate to any other device or client.

As I say, I've seen discussions of this issue that don't quite get at what I'm trying to do, and I don't want to follow the wrong advice and permanently lose all these messages.

I've got an RCA G1 running Android 4.4. The app is called "Gmail" and has an icon that looks like an envelope lined in red. I do not have it set to "Sync Gmail" because I'm concerned that doing so would cause the propagation I'm trying to prevent. Also, I've tried running a couple of tests, deleting just individual messages on the phone. The deleted messages go to "Trash," and this action propagates to other clients and devices. What I want is to delete them from the phone altogether, so they no longer take up phone memory, BUT have nothing happen to them (no deletion, no "Trash," nothing) anywhere else.

Any advice would be enormously appreciated. Until I resolve this, I'm very limited in what I can do with my phone, because the memory is constantly full.

 

[hallux]

Welcome..

The Gmail connection is a 1:1 relationship, as it seems you've found. There isn't a way to change this, that's just how it works. What you CAN do, or should be able to do, is change the number of days that sync. In the Gmail app, tap the "hamburger" menu (top left) and go to settings. Select the account you want to adjust and change the "days to sync" setting.

 

[smvim]

The problem is that the e-mail messages that have accumulated are taking up all my phone's memory. I don't need any of them stored on the phone and would like to delete them all. HOWEVER, I want to do this without deleting them from my Gmail account. I would like to delete them from the phone but still have them all right where i left them if I check Gmail through Chrome, Thunderbird, etc. In other words, I want to make deletions from the phone that do not propagate to any other device or client.

My advice is to switch to a third-party email app. Most of them have a lot more options to make interacting with your email service more the way you prefer. It sounds like you just want your phone to act more as just a very basic, remote email client and not be any kind of central hub to manage your email overall.
I rely on the K-9 Mail app, it's a nice Open Source email app with a history (released in 2008) almost as long as Android itself. Anyway, looking through the extensive Settings menus, at least three of them are relevant to your situation.



The first screen capture shows a 'Sync server deletions' option that you'd probably want to leave unchecked.
The second cap shows 'Do not delete on server' or 'Mark as read on server' options that one or the other would probably be your preference.
The third cap shows a 'Manually' option that would fit your needs better than 'Immediately'.
These are all inter-related so depending on how you initially set things up not all of these options will apply, the selected options are just my preferences.