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Mail Not Sorting new Folders Added Alphbetically

Hello! I have tons of sub folders in my inbox, and I would like it to sort them all alphabetically. This was all fine, but recently the last 6 folders I added to the list were appended to the bottom of the list, and not sorted alphabetically with the rest of the sub folders. Is there anyway I can reapply the sort alphabetically feature to the folder list? I cannot seem to find it anywhere.

Troubleshooting steps I have taken:
1) Closed and restarted Mail App
2) Restarted Computer
3) Added another new folder and it is still appended to bottom of list even after all the reboots
4) Mail is confirmed to work


Any help would be great. Thanks!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 19, 2009 2:38 PM

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Posted on Mar 1, 2010 1:28 AM

I think it's a new feature in the newer versions of Apple Mail, not sure when it got added but I'm running 4.2 (1077). The way I understand it is that in each mail account folder (/User/<username>/Library/Mail/<mailbox-name> there is a file called .mboxCache.plist that contains a key called "MailboxDisplayIndex" which is used to index the display order for the folders.

What I did to fix the problem was to quit Mail, rename the file to something else (like .mboxCache.plist.backup) and then restart Mail. This restored all my folders to the default alphabetical sequence. If you ever drag a folder to rearrange the sequence, then you can reset it by just doing the same steps above again.

HTH
15 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 1, 2010 1:28 AM in response to cohortq

I think it's a new feature in the newer versions of Apple Mail, not sure when it got added but I'm running 4.2 (1077). The way I understand it is that in each mail account folder (/User/<username>/Library/Mail/<mailbox-name> there is a file called .mboxCache.plist that contains a key called "MailboxDisplayIndex" which is used to index the display order for the folders.

What I did to fix the problem was to quit Mail, rename the file to something else (like .mboxCache.plist.backup) and then restart Mail. This restored all my folders to the default alphabetical sequence. If you ever drag a folder to rearrange the sequence, then you can reset it by just doing the same steps above again.

HTH

Jan 28, 2010 8:05 PM in response to Matt Garr

Hi,

I'm not sure, but I suspect the new Snow Leopard feature ...
http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html#mail
... that lets you move folders around manually might be what's causing the weird behavior.

In Leopard, you could move a folder inside another folder but, otherwise, they would always stay in alphabetical order, I think.

Anyways, in Snow Leopard (and Leopard for that matter), there's an invisible file around ~/Library/Mail/<name of your email account>/.mboxCache.plist It seems to keep a list of the mboxes in that folder/account. In Snow Leopard, the first time you manually move an mbox out of alphabetical order, a new key called MailboxDisplayOrder seems to get created in that plist for all the existing "non-special" (i.e. not INBOX, Sent, Drafts, etc.) mboxes in that folder. Once that key exists, it seems like new folders get appended to the end of the order.

I don't know the right way to fix the problem though. I'm really just posting my observations, based on what I'm seeing on my computer. I'd be very careful about manually messing with invisible files in your mail, especially if you don't have a good backup. (No idea if you can restore an invisible file with Time Machine.) A lot of this is guesswork. But I thought maybe it'd help someone.


Later,
k

Feb 1, 2010 10:11 AM in response to cohortq

I've been having the same problem since I upgraded to Snow Leopard.

S DAS: Thanks for offering a solution; unfortunately it didn't work for me.

I have a TON of folders for all my clients, and projects. This is quickly turning into a serious headache. I'm hoping Apple will get it together and fix this. I can't imagine that alphabetical sorting is all that challenging in this day and age.

Mar 23, 2010 4:05 PM in response to S Das

Sometimes I am unable to find and delete the ~/Library/Mail//.mboxCache.plist file. that would be the normal way I resolve this issue, but S Das disable and re-enable trick through mail preferences works every time. This problem WILL resurface in a month or two, but at least there are 2 possible ways to resolve it. My users are using Maill.app with Exchange 2007 server.

Mail Not Sorting new Folders Added Alphbetically

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