Starred/Flagged Folders Not Present

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Level 2

391 points

Starred/Flagged Folders Not Present

This is driving me crazy.

I just setup Apple Mail but after waiting 2 hours for all the folders to download, flagged/starred emails are seemingly a total loss.

I have TWO Gmail accounts and NEITHER show the starred folder. In addition, there is is no 'Flagged' entry under Mailboxes, in spite of the fact that I can visually see flags on various emails in the Inbox. So not only are the Starred folders not showing, but Flagged items aren't working right in Apple Mail as well...

I have verified the following:

1. Starred folders ARE enabled under both GMail accounts.

2. Under the folder lists in Apple Mail there is NO entry for a folder named GMail (so it's not a case of it being a sub-folder and me not seeing it).

3. Sometimes I actually do see the Starred folders show up, but they disappear after a couple of seconds.

4. These same accounts in a different email client, as well as on iPhone & iPad show the Starred folders fine.

It seems fairly odd that not only do the Starred folders no show up, but the internal flag feature in apple mail isn't working properly either...

Going a little bit further, I tried creating a smart mailbox and set it to display ALL flagged items, and that folder is empty.

And again, I can SEE the flags on the various messages IN the inbox, that is pretty much the only thing working in terms of flags in Apple Mail...

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), 8GB RAM, 256GB Hard Drive

Posted on May 8, 2014 4:29 PM

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Answer 1

Bobby T Author

Level 2

391 points

May 13, 2014 3:46 PM in response to dianeoforegon

There is no option to sync Gmail labels:

And I found after adding a test label that my starred folder showed up...

When I select that folder, however, it is empty in spite of the fact that it's got one email in every other client:

And, oddly enough, my important folder is enabled under IMAP (contrary to what I thought), however, as you can see, it's not showing in Apple Mail....

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Answer 2

May 19, 2014 2:25 PM in response to Bobby T

Testing in a new User will quickly tell you if the problem is system wide or if it's your User's folder that contains the problem.

CREATE A NEW USER

Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Accounts. Switch to the New User by logging out/in or use Fast User Switching.

Open Mail. Enter an account and test.

Do you still see the issue?

If yes, then the problem is with your base files.

If no, then the problem is in your User's folder.

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Answer 3

May 13, 2014 4:07 PM in response to Bobby T

I have MailTags. The synchronize Labels must be a MailTags feature. Sorry about the confusing info.

http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html

If you right click on Starred, do you have a Synchronize now option?

In your browser, try toggling on/off sync Important under Settings > Labels.

I hate to mention the fix that seems to fix most ills with Mail and Gmail to remove the Gmail account and enter again and let all download again from the server.

It's possible we'll see improvements in 10.9.3.

You might want to check out MailTab Pro for Gmail

$1.99 in the Mac App Store (MAS). I really like it but it's used for a low traffic Gmail account.

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Answer 4

Bobby T Author

Level 2

391 points

May 13, 2014 3:32 PM in response to dianeoforegon

I stated in my post:

1. Starred folders ARE enabled under both GMail accounts.

I don't have 'Important' enabled as Google's attempts to find Important emails has always been mismatched...

Important isn't related to flags in any way (as none of my starred/flagged emails show in the important folder and vise-verasa none of my important messages show in my starred/flagged folder)...

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Answer 5

Bobby T Author

Level 2

391 points

May 19, 2014 1:40 PM in response to Bobby T

It turns out this goes beyond Gmail...

I tried adding a non-Gmail based IMAP account, flagged a couple of emails, and sure enough they do not show up under 'flagged' either...

It seems setting up any new imap account from scratch in the current version of Apple Mail pretty much garuntees Flagged emails will not work...

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Answer 6

Bobby T Author

Level 2

391 points

Jun 3, 2014 1:01 PM in response to dianeoforegon

It's my personal beleif that this is a bug in Apple Mail. What I didn't menion before is I was using Apple Mail up until a couple months ago, when I tried switcing to a 3rd party app. Flagging worked fine on my active account, but when I tried to switch back to Apple Mail this problem started...

I have ruled out both my user account and the Gmail account becasue creating a new user and adding a new gmail account reproduced the same issue...

It's my beleif that the root caused is specific to starting a new setup for Apple Mail from scratch. The only way I can determine this for certain is to do a clean install of Mavericks and try again, so I'm going to do exaclty that.

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Answer 7

Jun 4, 2014 12:46 PM in response to dianeoforegon

Hello

It didn't help, I tested the new user account stuff with an iCloud and a Gmail account. Flag's folder remains empty or flags appear but show nothing and search inside Mail doesn't return any answer.

There is a very small thread on this issue here :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6260294?answerId=25997406022#25997406022&ac_cid=tw123456#25997406

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Answer 8

Bobby T Author

Level 2

391 points

Jun 4, 2014 2:16 PM in response to dianeoforegon

It was defninitely Mac OS X... That is to say my system was corrupted...

I created a new account on my system with a new Gmail account and the exact same issue occured...

I figured the problem would continue after I did a full reformat & install, but it did not...

My system was corrupted, the issue was fixed after the system format...

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Answer 9

Jun 5, 2014 12:43 AM in response to Bobby T

It bothers me a little bit to reinstall from scratch. I just did it a few weeks ago right before the problem occured…

It started on the very last versions of 10.9.3, now I'm on 10.9.4 beta 1 on home & work machine (the last one doesn't show this issue) and it didn't solve anything either.