I am using Mutt 1.5.20 in Mac OS X Terminal. I have a Google mail account whose mail I fetch via IMAP. I also use a Gmail notifier app to notify me of new e-mail messages. My experience with Mutt dates no later than 1 week.

The trouble is this: When my Gmail notifier tells me about a new e-mail, I hit the Terminal to open Mutt. I can read the message and Mutt will mark it as read. However, Google's servers are not told that the message is read until Mutt is closed. Thus, my Gmail notifier continues to show a misleading unread count.

How can I force Mutt to synchronize with IMAP without having to quit every time I finish reading my e-mail? Preferably the sync will occur instantaneously, but a periodic sync would be satisfactory as well.