As I mentioned, I said I'd try IMAP again to see if the alleged improvements in Apple Mail and Gmail IMAP were true. Or at least useful. So into the breach - I've been using it since Sunday evening. While IMAP works fine, it creates a distraction in that items that are automatically trashed (spam, etc) on the Google Mail server are now visible in Apple mail as a growing badge count in Trash. A distraction and no clear way to eliminate that. When I trash spam (etc) on Google's server but otherwise use POP for access, then that trash is not visible in Apple Mail on my Mac. So I don't see it, I don't have to clear it. (Note that I have Apple mail set to not show a count of unopened mail that I trash automatically. That works fine for all the POP accounts, but for IMAP it seems immune - if that alone were fixed on the Apple Mail side, all would be fine). Also some strange behaviour wrt to archived mails on Gmail occasionally popping into view in the archive folder in Gmail. So, as I (and a few others) keep saying, there are situations where IMAP is not appropriate (or Golidlocksian "just right") for home users and this is one of them. Back to POP (which requires mild subterfuge in Apple Mail for Google accounts).