For the last decade, I have been saving all my email by downloading them via POP3. But when I'm at work, I use MS Outlook 2003 with IMAP to keep up to date. Likewise, when I'm on the go, I use the mail client on my Nokia S60 cellphone's IMAP client.

But here's what's interesting about GMail. Unlike any other mail providers I have used, GMail's way of deleting mail is not easily understandable. When I delete mail on my other mail providers within Outlook, I see a strikethrough on the mail header until I go and purge deleted mail (which will go ahead and delete the mail on the mail server). But with GMail, when I delete mail from within Outlook, it automatically deletes the mail. Or so it seems.

Even when I go to www.google.com/gmail, I don't see my deleted mail in my Inbox. This is all good. That is, until I get home to download all my mail via POP3 (for GMail and other providers). For some reason, the mail that I previously thought were deleted actually ended up being downloaded!!! I've even tried purging deleted mail in Outlook at work before RDP'ing to my home computer to download via POP3, and surely enough, the deleted mail got downloaded into my Inbox.

Can anyone explain why GMail behaves very differently than all other IMAP connectivity when it comes to mail delete? Thanks in advance!

Work: Outlook 2003 (IMAP)
Home: Outlook 2003 (POP3)

I prefer POP3 because I archive all my email from back in the late 90's to present time into PST files. It's easier to do POP3 on my home computer. Not only do I have GMail, but I have several other mail accounts that I aggregate into a single PST file. I archive all my Sent mails too, and it's easy with Outlook. At work, I just select all my personal emails I've sent and drag them into a self-addressed email as attachments (as opposed to inline forwarding), and when I receive it at home, I drop all those attachments into my Sent folder and voila.

It seems like the only way I can duplicate the "normal" IMAP behavior is if I highlight the mail I want to delete, and instead of hitting the Delete key, I do SHIFT-CTRL-V (move) and then select Gmail \ Trash folder as the destination. I'm not sure why it won't behave normally and requires special process than many other IMAP setups. Anybody know why?