

Gmail applied two labels, 'Inbox' and 'Sent', so email could be seen in two different folders. So in your case the email was stored in 'All Mail'. When email is put into the gmail Trash folder, all labels get removed and when it is removed from Trash, it is completely deleted from the 'All Mail' folder. If you do not empty the Trash then gmail will do it periodically eg: every 30 days. When you delete an email in an imap account (or in gmail webmail), that deleted email is put into the gmail Trash folder.

When you apply 'labels' to emails in that 'All Mail' folder, a virtual copy can be seen in any 'folder' which has a label for that 'folder'. They faciliate a sort of virtual view which is more like a set of folders for organising mail by using 'labels'. Gmail keeps all emails, incoming, outgoing,archived all in one folder called 'All Mail'.īut gmail know this is not the most convenient method of viewing emails when all is lumped together.
