Thunderbird and Gmail

[Dorkenstein]

I'd really like to totally purge my gmail account of everything but my important account login etc. emails and have it empty so I can use thunderbird with IMAP. IMAP keeps wanting to download all my emails going back several years. Is there anything I can do to clean my inbox and everything or should I just stick to the POP protocol? Thanks.

 

[sivart]

You could go to Gmail and "Archive" the messages that you want to keep, but don't want to bring in IMAP. They won't be in your inbox, and thus, not in the Thunderbird inbox.