Gmail started with offering IMAP

[lwc]

Thanks for helping the cause. BTW, while filling up personal support forms is good, I also wish people here would bump the Google Group message to show public support (it would make people in that group notice it and maybe join in).

[JRF]

... For your "inspiration" , this is what I wrote to Gmail :

Brief Summary: Please provide a "real deletion" for Gmail Imap

Full Description: The recent IMAP+IDLE access is the best you have done on client access until now

BUT it is not acceptable you leave a copy of the deleted messages in the Gmail\All-mail , they must be in the Gmail\Trash only .

Please keep your principles to give better and more practical features to your users .

I was disappointed by Gmail's answer , just quoting their documentation , without any intention of changing this behavior :

Hello, thank you for your report.

Deleting messages from your client's inbox mimics Gmail's unique archiving feature by only removing the 'inbox' label from the message.

To permanently delete messages, you can move them to Gmail\Trash.

For client-specific settings that affect deleting and storing messages and
drafts, please visit Gmail-Imap Help Topic 12761 .

Sincerely, The Google Team

From the above link , I reproduce below the relevant section , and highlight in red a phrase that may be considered by Jeff (does it mean that a client may alter this status-quo ? ) :

Deleting:

* Do NOT save deleted messages on the server. Messages that are deleted from an IMAP folder (except for those in Gmail\Spam or Gmail\Trash) only have that label removed and still exist in All Mail.
Hence, your client doesn't need to store an extra copy of a deleted message.

* Do NOT save deleted messages to your Gmail\Trash folder because this will delete a message in all folders.

* Do NOT save deleted messages to your Gmail\All Mail folder as some clients will try to empty this folder and ultimately fail. This can lead to delayed mail access or unnecessary battery consumption on a mobile device.

[lwc]

They've just sent me a reply. Here's the relevant text:

While Gmail doesn't currently support a way to change this functionality,
we are testing many new features to improve the Gmail service.

We are forwarding your feature request to the appropriate team.

I am proud to say that just prior to the 1 year anniversary to my post above - Gmail has added true deletion support for IMAP!