Syncing email 'On My Mac' folders across all my Apple devices

Hi James - people seem to be missing your point. You, and I, want our convenience folders in our Mac Mail folder panes to appear and sync automatically on all devices. Aside from iPad, which doesn't support Mac Mail.

IMAP is definitely required. The only caution with IMAP is if you mistakenly close an email account on the server, your stored messages will disappear on all your devices. This is rare but catastrophic.

I managed to create a folder on my Mac Air and get my iMac to sync it, but it wasn't easy. I think people are smart by suggesting we set the sub-folders up on our email servers in the cloud, and tell each device to keep a copy of those folders on our devices, synced easily by IMAP.

Then we can access the same folders from our iPads, from online cafes overseas, and on all our devices.

You already know the answer. To sync email across multiple devices you must use IMAP email accounts.

The short and sweet answer is still no. You cannot sync local storage folders to the iPad. The iPad mail app does not allow for local storage folders. As Bob said, if you have an IMAP account you can create additional mailboxes on the iPad. But the folders that you have on the Mac, just will not sync to the iPad.

Yes, as I said. To sync email you must use IMAP accounts. Your IMAP folders will be synced on all your devices. You can not create folders on your iPad or any other device locally and have those folders/emails sync with all devices.

I see that Bob has already responded, but yes, that is how it works. I have two IMAP accounts all of my folders, messages and actions sync across devices.

I am not at my own Mac right now. I am at work and I don't use Mac Mail at work. I could certainly check when I get home. But you can create the mailboxes on the server or on the iPad itself and they will sync to the Mac mail account.

Frankly, I rarely use Mac mail any more at all. No need to now that I have the iPad. I can do it all on here. I use Mac Mail mainly to delete the old POP messages from my primary email account after I read and respond to them on the iPad.

James_uklondon wrote:

Just one last question, as I've just tried to create a new IMAP email account on my Macbook, I can't see how I can create the additional folders (mailboxes) in that account, so I can store old/important emails... could you tell me how I can do this?

Mail > Mailbox > New Mailbox...

Select the location (in your case, in the new IMAP account) and subfolder if needed.

Supply a name for the new folder (mailbox).

Hit "OK" button.

As Demo said, you can also create the new maibox hierarchy using your iPad.

I have been trying to figure this out for months. Thank you all for finally lifting the confusion, and thanks James for asking the original question. Very much appreciated!

Dulcie

Hi James

Just checked whether there is an easy solution because installing IMAP accounts will not work for all my accounts.

Basically, there is a simple way by exporting the On My Mac mailboxes to your desktop or elsewhere and then use a program such as Dropbox to make them available on any system. There's some work involved, of course, but at least it's possible.
Suzanne

Suzanne, IMAP doesn't have to work on all of your accounts, just one -- if it has enough room for the extra folders and messages. A free iCloud or Gmail accounts would suffice in most cases.