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Apple Mail is the best email client available. That’s a controversial statement (as controversial as a discussion about a mail client can be), but I’ve never found another client that is as fast, easy, and uncluttered as Apple Mail. That said, like any email client, it has it’s own share of irritating problems. I’m going to show you how to solve a very common one.

“Special” IMAP Folders

If you’re using an email service which provides IMAP, and I hope that you are, all of your messages are stored directly on the server. The advantage is that you can migrate between multiple machines and email clients (such as your work and home computers, or your smartphone) and see all of the same emails on each system, including Sent Messages, Junk mail, and other specially dedicated folders where messages are automatically stored. This in addition to the folders you may have created to organize your email however you see fit.

The Problem

Sometimes, Apple Mail doesn’t detect correctly which folders on your mail store should be used for each purpose. Instead, it creates it’s own folders on your computer, which aren’t synchronized up to the email server. Suddenly, that sent message which you thought would be available on all of your devices is only available on the system which initially sent it.

Identifying the Problem Folders, and setting them straight

Apple Mail doesn’t provide an obvious method to see where a message is being stored, but it is simple once you know where to look.

My Drafts Folder doesn’t seem to be synchronizing between systems. If I take my mouse, and hover it over the Drafts folder, we’ll see an interesting message:

Your folder is stored locally.

Now, down under the heading for my IMAP account (which I named “CSNW” in this case), you’ll see the Drafts Folder which is saved on the server. We’re going to select that folder…

The Drafts folder that I want the mail client to use.

We’re going to select that folder, click the Mailbox menu item, then Use this Mailbox For, and select the type of folder you want it to behave as. In this case, Drafts.

Tell Mail what you’d like to use the mailbox for…

Once that’s been selected, you’ll see that the Drafts folder is now listed as being on the server.

Drafts folder, showing that it is stored at the server.

Clean Up

Unfortunately, if you’ve been using the wrong folder from quite some time, you probably have a lot of messages left in the old special folder. You’ll need to manually migrate these over to the server from the old folder, which is now listed on the mail sidebar under On My Mac.

My old Drafts folder.

The fix is as easy as you’d expect, select all of the mail messages that are in the old folder, and drag them over to the new one. Mail will move the messages up to your mail server!

Other frustrations…

Unfortunately, you’ll want to keep an eye on your Apple Mail. From time to time, depending on your usage and connection to the server, Mail might “forget” your folder assignments. This happens when there’s communications problems with the server. In that case, it will automatically create an On My Mac folder for the special folder that it’s forgotten, and start placing messages there. This happens most commonly to my Sent folder. This won’t cause any problems, but you may find yourself needing to periodically remind Mail of the proper folder to use. The method is the same, just be sure to move files from your old special folder to the new one after changing it’s assignment.

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About Iris Professional Services
Iris Professional Services is a computer consulting company operating offices in both Seattle and Portland. Businesses throughout the Pacific Northwest rely on our expert IT consultants for all their network IT support services.