How can Apple Mail be configured to mimic Gmail's "Archiving" behaviour for a generic IMAP account? It is straightforward to configure a Gmail account being accessed through Apple Mail to Archive messages when you "delete" them from the mail client. With generic IMAP accounts, however, the only options for deleting messages are:


Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox (which, when unchecked, leaves them in the Inbox)
Store deleted messages on the server (which, when unchecked, stores them in the local mailbox only, I suppose)
Permanently erase deleted messages when &lt;time interval&gt;...


Is there a way, through a combination of server configuration and, perhaps, Apple Mail rules, to move messages to an IMAP "archive" folder when I Trash them?

(I note that there seems to exist no condition in Apple Mail's rules to take action when a message is deleted...)
Mail does have an action called "Archive" in the Message menu that moves the current message in to  a directory called "Archive."  I use it all day every day on my work IMAP account just like in Gmail.  I stash everything in there and just rely on search to find what I need.  It works great.

I don't think there's a way to remap the Delete key to perform an Archive action instead, but Archive does have a keyboard shortcut: control-command-A.  If you find that as clunky as I do, you can remap it in System Preferences' Keyboard pane.



You can also add Archive to your toolbar if that's more your thing.