Am I the only one who wants to copy mail from Gmail to a local Thunderbird folder

Probably. With IMAP all mail is managed on the server. If you want all your mail local, why do you use IMAP in the first place?

No. I want it ALL on the server, and only very little of it local.

There seems to be no way to set the read status on the IMAP server to "read" after the copy action

You can add a filter action 'mark as read' prior to copying the message.

But this marks the message as read also in Thunderbird.

I don't think I understand your motivation to do things as described. It doesn't sound logic to me. Perhaps you can provide some more context for what you're trying to achieve.

I need a local copy of my work mail -- of which a large part also gets deleted locally, but must stay available on the IMAP server.

OK can I solve this like so:

1. Create a Label on Gmail for "Work" mail and a Gmail filter that moves incoming "Work" mail to this label
2. Configure the Thunderbird folder associated with the Gmail "Work" label for Offline Reading
3. Setup the Gmail account in Thunderbird for "When deleting a message, move it to "All Mail" in Gmail (i.e. only remove the label "Work" from the respective mail but don't actually delete it)

What do you think?

I still don't feel like I understand your environment and why you want to do things like that. I have no intention to speculate. If the above works for you - that's fine.

Setup the Gmail account in Thunderbird for "When deleting a message, move it to "All Mail" in Gmail

I thought this is what Gmail does in the first place. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78755

> I thought this is what Gmail does in the first place.

Yes, this is what Google says but it is not true for Thunderbird -- even when you follow Google's configuration instructions for Thunderbird.

Again, I needed a folder containing "Work" mail in Thunderbird which must be available offline (inter alia for reasons of speed).

Additionally, this folder contains only a certain important subset of all mail that is generally "Work" related. For example, online shop shipping notifications etc. also go into this folder, but usually get deleted from this folder as soon as they have been read.

However, mail that is deleted locally from this Thunderbird "Work" folder must remain on the IMAP server online, and not get deleted from there.

Can this be done with my above approach, or is there a better idea?

Thanks

Based on the above information, this is what I'd do. Whether that fits with what you have in mind, I have no idea.

• create a label 'work' in Gmail
• subscribe to the folder 'work' in Thunderbird
• turn on offline use for 'work' in Thunderbird
• filter 'certain important subset of all mail' to the 'work' label/folder

I have set it up all now like this.

However, the: "Setup the Gmail account in Thunderbird for "When I Delete a Message" -> "Move it to this Folder: All Mail in Gmail"

...part does not work! If I delete a message in the IMAP folder "Work" in Thunderbird, it gets DELETED from the IMAP server (i.e. gets moved to the IMAP trash), instead of getting moved to the "All Mail" folder/label.

What is wrong here?

I don't understand what you're trying to achieve with moving to 'All Mail'.

As I said: When deleting mail from the "Work" folder in Thunderbird, that mail must not be deleted from the IMAP server (i.e. moved to the IMAP trash).

Rather, only the label "Work" must be removed from the mail, like set up in the Thunderbird settings:

http://i.imgur.com/vZoRHga.png

However, this setting gets ignored.

Why?

I don't think this is going to work. And it doesn't make any sense to me. Good luck.

Why is it that every time I ask on any TB support forum I end up explaining stuff instead of getting an answer?

I need mail to stay on the server even if I delete it locally. Which part of this is not understandable?

Anyway, don't bother. I fixed it myself in the meantime by setting up the Gmail account anew in Thunderbird.

See also: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2877149