Sent, Drafts, Junk and Trash folders aren't showing up for e-mail address

Hi Stefan,

It's quite acceptable to start a new topic of your own, certainly feel free to start a new topic to attract more helpers to your particular situation, here's a link if as is often the case, it's hard to find out where to do it...

http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=753

Hi Nate, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

my third e-mail doesn't have any Sent, Drafts, Junk or Trash folders showing up.

Have you Highlighted that Account, gone to Mail's Menu>Mailboxes>New Mailbox, and created "Sent, Drafts, Junk or Trash folders"? Then Synchronized that Account?

Hi gang. I'm having a similar problem. Have been a very long-time Eudora user, but I'm trying to make the transition to Apple Mail. I have 2 POP accounts set up in Mail, and I'm able to send and receive mail properly with both accounts. But.. I don't have a Trash mailbox. Reading in Mail's Help, I see a number of references to the Trash mailbox. I have menu options to send messages TO the trash. But no Trash mailbox. After sending a message to the trash, if I select Mailbox--> Go To--> Trash, I just get a blank message list. Mail's Help indicates that there should be a Trash mailbox under each account. But I can't find ANY mailbox labeled Trash. Or Junk either. I DO have a Drafts and a Sent Mailbox, but no Trash or Junk.

After reading the previous response in this thread, I did try creating a new mailbox and named it Trash. But I don't think that's the official Mail Trash mailbox.. in the contextual menu, under Move To I see the newly created Trash folder (which looks like a normal OSX folder), in addition to the Apple-looking Trash can.

Any ideas what I've done wrong, and how I might fix this?

Mac OSX 10.4.11, Mail 2.1.3

The dialog that popped up when I selected New Mailbox said it would be created at the top level of the mailbox list, and the only selection in the pull-down menu was "On My Mac." I don't understand the "On My Mac" thing.. saw that in the Help stuff but I don't see anything in Mail that says "On My Mac." And these are POP accounts, so I don't have an IMAP server to put anything on. I'm a bit confused.

The selection I've made in setting up both of my accounts (in Mail) is to "move deleted messages to a separate folder" which the Help documents indicate will put them in "a separate mailbox (named the same as your account), located in the Trash mailbox on your computer." But I can't find a Trash mailbox. I've got a Trash FOLDER now, but deleting messages doesn't put them there,because it's just a mailbox I created, not the real Trash mailbox. I do have separate mailboxes (one for each of my accounts) under Inbox, Drafts, and Sent... but there is no Trash or Junk mailbox.

I can't seem to create an additional mailbox "in my account." If I select my account name and select New Mailbox from the menu, that puts the new mailbox at the top level, and not under my account name.

Message was edited by: jb

The dialog that popped up when I selected New Mailbox said it would be created at the top level of the mailbox list, and the only selection in the pull-down menu was "On My Mac." I don't understand the "On My Mac" thing

Hmm, do you have that account Highlighted when you create a new folder?

I get the same result with "Inbox," my account name, or nothing selected. It only wants to create a new mailbox at the top level.

Take a look at this screenshot. This is what my mailbox list looks like. With the fake Trash "folder" that I created. http://www.dotcommusic.com/ftp/forum-media/mailboxes2.png

Does that give you any clues about what I need to do? (and thanks for your help, by the way!)

Sorry for the confusion, not highlighted in the Pref>Accounts window, but highlight the box ix in the regular Mail widow, (behind in that shot), then create the new Mailbox & it should go in there. 🙂

No no.. that IS where I highlighted when creating the new mailbox. It still put it in the top level. It does that no matter which mailbox I have highlighted. I had the Accounts window open when making the screenshot simply to show my accounts along with the mailboxes.

One other thing... under the Mailbox menu--> Go To, these mailboxes are listed: In, Out, Drafts, Sent, Trash, and Junk. Out and Junk are both dimmed, so I can not select them. Interestingly, Trash is not dimmed, but selecting it takes me no where (or, to a blank message list, that is), even after I've sent messages to the trash. I thought that perhaps I could set my "new" Trash mailbox as the real one by selecting Trash under the Use This Mailbox For menu item. But all choices there are dimmed.

I can still use Mail as it is, but it sure would be nice to get it working as it should be. I'd like to be able to review messages I've trashed, before permanently deleting them.

Message was edited by: jb

Can you go to the IMAP Server in WEbmail and make the Folder there?

I cant figure out yet why these things work for me and not you!?

Have you done a Get Info on those things in the Finder to check the Rights & Privileges?

Are you running as an Admin user?

BDAqua wrote:
Can you go to the IMAP Server in WEbmail and make the Folder there?

These are POP accounts, not IMAP.

BDAqua wrote:
Have you done a Get Info on those things in the Finder to check the Rights & Privileges?

Yes: Read and Write

BDAqua wrote:
Are you running as an Admin user?

Yes.

Interesting: In Finder, looking at the structure inside the Mail directory (at ~/Library/Mail ) in the Mailboxes (root) directory I can see the Trash.mbox (that would be the one I created) which is empty, but there is also a Deleted Messages.mbox which appears to contain the messages I've deleted. But I don't see this this Deleted Messages mailbox in the list within Mail.app. And no Junk mailbox anywhere. Looking inside the folders for each of my accounts, they only contain an .mbox directory for Drafts, INBOX, and Sent. No Trash, and no Junk. I wonder: would it work to manually create a Trash.mbox directory there in Finder? I thought that changing the structure in Finder was a no-no, but should I try it?

I thought that changing the structure in Finder was a no-no, but should I try it?

To be on the safe side, Quit Mail, backup your whole Mail folder. Right click on it, choose Archive/Compress. Move the resulting Mail.zip to a safe place. Only the plist will be separate.

The Mail folder is at...

Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/

The pref file at...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

Interesting... without trying to manually edit my mailboxes, suddenly today I've finally got a real Trash Mailbox. ??!! One that looks like a standard Mac trashcan. It's at the root level in my mailbox list, and not under each of my POP accounts (as the Mail Help documentation says it should be, given that I've set both accounts to put trash in a "separate folder"), but I'm not going to complain, or try to figure out "why not?" I'll take it as it is, because finally I can see what I've put in the trash. Clearly, it was NOT there before (if you look at the screenshot I posted earlier), but now it is.

I WOULD like to know "why now" and "why not before," but that's not too important at this point.

So I'm going to consider this one "Answered," (can't mark it that way, since this isn't my thread) although I see no reason for why the Trash suddenly appeared. I still have no "Junk" mailbox, though...

Yea. I'll take it. But as I said, I hate not knowing why, because I look at each learning experience as accumulated experience for dealing with the next issue to come.. and not knowing why just leaves me with a hole in that accumulated experience column. Which means that I'll have to go through this whole experience again at a later date, I'm sure.

But thanks for all your effort in trying to solve this one!

I'm having the same identical problem. I have 2 email accounts set up that work fine. And now creating a 3rd one, I have NO SENT email box, DRAFT email box nor TRASH email mailbox. I can send and receive messages, but have no record of them once sent or once deleted (no trash). I restarted Apple's Mail program and now UNDER the INBOXES I do have what look like normal folders underneath the inbox name for SENT, DRAFT and TRASH. This is NOT normal. Usually they have Apples icons to the left of them and usually they are under Apple's headings for DRAFT,SENT and TRASH.

Anybody have any ideas...is this an Apple or Apple Mail thing or something with my new email address...I set this up for my company via DreamHost.