Creating new folders in Mail on iPhone?

The answer is no. You will have to create the folder from either the MacMail, Outlook or the webmail interface in order to see the folders on the iPhone. Folders cannot be created from the iPhone.

If you are talking about an IMAP account, you can create new folders (i.e., more saved mail folders) on the mail client on your computer. These new folders are actually on the server and should show up on your iphone. I have several "save" sub-folders for both my AOL and MobileMe IMAP accounts that show up on my iphone.

I may not be replying to the right person in this thread, but I figured it was better than starting a new thread. I'm a PC user. I have an iphone 3g. The only folders I got are "inbox" and "trash". I am using a pop account. I have 100's of folders in Outlook, but I can't seem to create them on the iphone. Is this just impossible?

If this impossible, do you think anyone from apple reads this forum? Because if they do I'd like to throw a brick through your corporate windows. I mean, COME ON YOU IDIOTS, this is just LAME.

You don't create new folders on the iphone, you go to the advanced settings for the IMAP accounts and tell the iphone to use the folders on the server, tell your computer mail client to use the folders on the servers, and sync the account settings from your computer. You should see the folders that you have already set up on the server. If the folders don't appear on the iphone, you might want to delete and recreate the accounts on the iphone. On mine the "new" folders appear if I quit and restart mail on the iphone.

My question is simply, can I use the iPhone to create/delete folders just as I do using the Mail app, Outlook, webmail, etc...

The answer is no, but if you have webmail access for the account with Safari on the iPhone, you can create a new server stored mailbox with Safari on your iPhone. And you were on site without access to any computer which would have provided webmail access for your email account in order to create a new server stored mailbox or mailboxes for access with your iPhone while away from your computer?

Sorry for the confusion, I agree that you cannot do it from the mail application on you iphone, you have to use your computer mail client or a web browser (computer or iphone); then you can use the folders on the iphone.

Yup, you really can't use POP accounts on multiple devices unless you want your messages to end up saved all over the place. That's what IMAP is for, I can't imagine a change to the iphone software that would fix the limitations of POP mail.

Mailboxes stored locally on your hard drive are not included with the iTunes sync process. No mailboxes and messages are included with the iTunes sync process. The email accounts option under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences is for transferring email account settings from your computer to your iPhone only so you don't have to manually create the account with the iPhone's mail client.

With a POP account, the only mailboxes available will be the account's Inbox, Drafts, Sent, and Trash mailboxes. The account's Sent mailbox will not be created until you send a message with the account, and the account's Drafts mailbox will not be created until you save a message as a draft.

Accessing a POP account with the iPhone's mail client is no different from accessing the account with a different email client on your computer, or with an email client on another computer. All mailboxes stored locally on your computer's hard drive with the existing email client being used to access the account will not be available after creating the account with another email client on your computer, or with an email client on another computer. The same applies to the iPhone's mail client. There are no phones in the smart phone category that provide for accessing mailboxes stored locally on your computer's hard drive with the email client used on your computer for accessing the account, and I'm not aware of any phones in the smart phone category that provide for syncing locally stored mailboxes on your computer.

Although a POP account can be accessed with more than one email client, a POP account is designed to be accessed with a single email client only. You can't store sent messages on the server with a POP account, so messages sent with one email client used to access the account will not be available with another email client used to access the account and vice-versa.

An IMAP account is designed to be accessed with more than one email client with all server stored mailboxes for the account available with each email client used to access the account along with all server stored mailboxes kept synchronized with the server. Send a message with the iPhone's mail client with an IMAP account and the sent message will be available in the account's Sent mailbox with the email client used on your computer for accessing the account and vice-versa.

You can also create additional server stored mailboxes with the email client used on your computer for accessing an IMAP account to store received and sent messages by category, and the additional server stored mailboxes created with the email client used on your computer for accessing an IMAP account will be available automatically when accessing the account with the iPhone's mail client, or with another email client used on a different computer for accessing the account, along with all server stored mailboxes kept synchronized with the server automatically with each email client used to access the account.

This is not possible with a POP account.

I access an IMAP account with the email client on my Mac, with the iPhone's mail client, and with Windows Mail on a PC running Vista that I use at work for estimating software that doesn't have a Mac version. All server stored mailboxes with the account are available with each email client that I use to access the account, along with all server stored mailboxes kept synchronized with the server automatically.

Have you ever used a Windows Mobile device to access your POP account? If so, were all mailboxes stored locally on your computer's hard drive with the email client used on your computer available with the Windows Mobile device? Sure you could probably create locally stored mailboxes or folders on a Windows Mobile device to store received and sent messages by category, but all your existing locally stored mailboxes or folders with the email client used on your computer would not be available with the Windows Mobile device with no way to transfer the mailboxes or folders from your computer to the device. Would you also want to throw a brick through Microsoft's corporate office windows because you aren't able to transfer and access all locally stored mailboxes or folders on your computer with your Windows Mobile Device? Probably not, but if the account can be accessed as an IMAP account, you would have access to all mailboxes and folders with the email client on the Windows Mobile device if all mailboxes and folders are stored on the server.

Am I the only one out there that wants to manage their email differently on the iPhone verses the laptop verses the desktop ?

I understand IMAP, but I do NOT want all 3 platforms to stay in sync.

I use POP on all 3 devices,
but I set them to leave the messages on the server for 5 days.
Then each device loads the emails down.
I use the iPhone to quickly skim the emails and only read the urgent ones,
deleting all the rest (i get 50+ emails per day)
I use the laptop/desktop for the more thorough reading and filing.

Often I find that I want to save an email on the iPhone because it contains some data that I want mobile (say a word document or excel spreadsheet)
I wish I could move these into a save folder on the iPhone and carry them around with me.

I rarely sync my iPhone to the computer, again things like contacts/addresses
are used differently on the iPhone verses the desktop so i dont organize them the same, nor do i even keep the same contact info on each device.

Finally found some wonderful apps which let me manage the contacts and groups
directly ON the iPhone instead of on the PC and then sync (ABContacts)

I want the same thing for my email folders. I want to create folders directly on the phone and move emails into them. I do NOT want them on the server, i want them on the phone itself.

I guess my work around will be to setup an IMAP dedicated to the iPhone and then forward ALL of my mail to that IMAP. The desktop and laptop can stay POP,
but the iPhone will access the forwarded emails from the IMAP account.
It will work, but less than elegant. I also worry about accessing emails with
documents or spreadsheet when I am out of high-speed network range.
Heck I have 16GB of flash, why cant I use it for real stuff instead of simply limiting it to my music and video.

How are others dealing with this problem, or does the entire world like to sync to the PC and maintain a single consistent view ?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around this as well. This is all good information, thanks guys (except for that one weirdo).
I understand most of this information, I'm confused on a couple of items:
1. I understand that I need to setup any new desired folders via the .me interface on the web (versus 'on my mac', on the PC). i've done this successfully but the folder doesn't seem to sync back to the .mail application.
2. Setting up folders, as I've described above, is really easy. However, obviously, we want to set up rules in order that the mail that comes in gets directly distributed. How are the rules set up? It seems to me that it should work exactly like the 'on my mac' in order to be useful.
3. Just a comment, I'd be interested in being enlightened... Perhaps it's just semantics but if we're setting up all these folders in order to organize our mail, why wouldn't the folders we may reside in the inbox? It seems to me that logically this is where they would live, however that's the only place you can't put them. I'm sure there is a reason, I'd be interested to know someone else's position as to why it makes sense the way they've done it. (Note, weirdo poster, that I don't freak out on it because I'm sure I'm the one that's LAME.)

I keep them synced with IMAP because I only want to touch each email once. If I find something on the phone that I want to deal with from one of my macs, I just leave it in the inbox until I get to the right computer. If I need to keep something for reference, I put it in the appropriate folder from the iphone; and I delete the junk from the iphone. I can't imagine using POP for anything, I would never remember which mail I have already dealt with.

Actually, I agree with Greenstem... I have a POP account and leave my messages on the server. I would like to be able to manage folders on my iphone as I like to keep certain messages handy (but not all) and don't want to end up with an inbox with a ton of stuff in it that I have to sort though all the time. I has this feature on my Palm Treo and it was very handy. Hard to believe Apple can't do it.