Outlook 2019 IMAP deleted items issue

Question

Outlook 2019 IMAP deleted items issue

Megan Z 0

Hey all

Outlook 2019 - using IMAP Gmail.

My 65 year old Mum has only ever used Outlook, and just complained that it's taking aaages to sync every time she does a send/receive. I discovered that the IMAP settings on the Gmail side were set to archive deleted items, instead of sending to trash - so now everything she's deleted in Outlook for years is still sitting in "All Mail" on the Gmail side. Ughhhh.

So I fixed the setting, but that hasn't removed all of those deleted items from "All Mail" in Gmail, it just fixes the behaviour going forward.

I know I can just stop "All Mail" from syncing through IMAP and that's fine to help Outlook not to be so slow and loading so much, but that still doesn't remove all of those 25,000+ emails from Gmail.

Is there a way that I can sync it so that only the emails sitting in Outlook are shown in Gmail as well?

Outlook has around 4,800 emails total, whereas Gmail has 38,800. There's no way we can go through and delete them all one or even a few at a time, and can't just bulk delete everything older than 2 years or whatever because a heap of it is stuff we need to keep - it's not all deleted items.

Hellppppppp.

(And this doesn't even take into account the big issue I've got with folder names and all of that shit being all messed up. That's for another post. Ergh.)

Thanks all.

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Megan Z,

What you’re seeing is often related to how Gmail was previously configured for IMAP deletions. When the setting is configured to archive deleted messages, items removed from Outlook can remain stored in Gmail’s All Mail folder, which may increase the amount of data Outlook needs to synchronize and affect performance.

A few options that may help:

1, Exclude "All Mail" from IMAP synchronization

Sign in to Gmail on the web.
Go to Settings > Labels.
Disable IMAP access for All Mail.
Restart Outlook and allow it to resync.

2, Review and clean up Gmail directly

Use Gmail's search and label tools to identify older archived messages that are no longer needed.
This is generally faster than trying to manage a very large number of messages through Outlook.

3, Compact the Outlook data file

In Outlook, go to File > Account Settings > Data Files.
Select the data file and choose Settings > Compact Now (if available).
This can help reduce the local storage footprint after cleanup.

Unfortunately, there is no simple synchronization option that automatically removes every message from Gmail that is not currently visible in Outlook, especially when archived messages remain stored in Gmail's mailbox structure.

For now, excluding All Mail from synchronization is likely the quickest way to improve Outlook performance while you decide how to manage the archived content.

Let me know if you need further assistance, feel free to ask me by clicking "Add Comment" or "Add Answer" if you cannot add comment so your response will be visible. Thanks for your effort.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Megan Z 0 Reputation points

2026-09-16T04:06:50.62+00:00

Okay so your suggestions will help to prevent it happening going forward, and compact the local file, but there's no way to actually get rid of all of the past deleted emails sitting in Gmail?

Surely if Outlook and Gmail are syncing then their contents should match? How is there no way to do that?

Arghhh.
Hendrix-V 19,035 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-09-16T04:43:38.6866667+00:00

Hi Megan Z,

I completely understand the frustration. Unfortunately, Gmail cannot tell which messages in All Mail were intentionally archived and which were previously “deleted” through Outlook, so it cannot safely remove them automatically. Archived Gmail messages remain in All Mail rather than Trash.

The historical messages must therefore be reviewed and bulk-deleted from Gmail on the web or from Outlook’s synchronized All Mail folder. Before deleting anything in bulk, back up the messages that must be retained, since emptying Trash permanently removes them from the IMAP server.

I know this is not the one-step fix you were hoping for, but correcting the deletion setting will prevent the same buildup going forward.