Mac Mail on Mac keeps rearranging mailboxes randomly

Rather than dragging and dropping the accounts in MacMail, go to

Click on the Apple Logo (top-left)

Choose 'System Preferences...'

Choose 'Internet Accounts'

For each account listed untick the 'Mail' option

Now turn them on in the order you want them to be shown.

So far they haven't changed order for me 🤞

I found a solution on another apple support page about this same issue: so far it seems to work (about 24 hours) which has made me very happy after six months of constant low-level irritation. Thanks to user E-I-M and @andymyrick!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250758919?answerId=252579645022#252579645022

Posting the link didn't seem to work, so I'm reproducing EIM's answer here. All credit to them:

For the last three days I have found this solution to work.

My inbox has not rearranged itself and I have control on how I want to arrange it. Rather than wait further to see if it continues to work or fail, I pass this on to the forum to experiment with. Perhaps Apple will look into its relationships with Google/yahoo etc. and the whole 2FA process involving mail.

I have only tried it with 4 Gmail accounts, one Webmail account and two iCloud accounts. It does not work with a GSuite account.

I am currently running OS Catalina 10.15.4 on a MacBook Pro and iMac and both are responding well so far. I have synced mail and notes successfully and had no need to sync calendars etc.

Instructions are simple enough to follow and involve deleting all your Gmail accounts before adding them back as "other accounts" and not using the standard "google" option.

This solution may not work for all, but there may be a sufficient amount of people solely using Gmail and iCloud accounts who may benefit from this.

Credit to @andymyrick for writing the article, albeit for a different reason.

Link: https://appletoolbox.com/how-to-fix-apple-mail-opening-in-split-screen-on-macos-catalina/

Some sanity for now, but may be short-lived!

EIM

So..... MacOS Catalina 10.15.3 has not fixed this problem. [sigh]

I think it has to do with my macbook coming out of sleep mode. If I quit mail before closing the lid, and open mail after resuming from sleep, all goes OK. If I leave mail open, close the lid, resume the next day, all is broken. No mailboxes in the Mailbox side bar, or sometimes just rearranged...

And NO! I do not want to switch to awful Outlook. I just want Mac mail to work like it used to, before Catalina.

Yes, you can do something:

Call Apple support, get a case number, help them with their diagnostic tool.

If more people do this, it will add weight to the issue and increase the chance Apple will bother fixing it.

If it works for you, and you don't need calendars or contacts in your Google account, I suppose would leave it as is for the moment, till Apple fixes it.

Oath is simply more secure, as the master password for the account is not slung around over the internet to login (encrypted of course) .

Redoing oAuth is simple enough:

In the accounts settings page (system preferences > internet accounts) delete the Google accounts (assuming you used IMAP, so the mail is all on the Google servers) and add them again, by choosing Google as the account type. When adding the accounts you will verify your login credentials in a safari window. When verified Google will setup Oauth for the mail app to use. All automagic of course.

You'll want to get a video of the issue being replicated while your clock shows the date and time (hh:mm:ss). That way when apple gets the logs they can pinpoint the exact error message and either help you fix this on your computer or update the software. Try using outlook if you dont' like mac mail.

Hi John,

Thanks for updating this. A logical conclusion therefore is:

With manual and less secure IMAP/password this problem does not occur. But with OAUTH communication and automatic configuration the problem does occur.

Google is going to get rid of less secure IMAP logins, so Apple still needs to fix this.

Yes, Apple needs to fix this, or at least figure out with Google why there are problems with Google accounts and OAUTH, which then seem to change the order of the listed inboxes. It's not like Google accounts are a small player on the email field....

Let's be very clear about something:

Google cannot change the order in which the macOS Catalina mail app displays Google mailboxes. Only Apple controls that order.

And yes, Apple moderates here. It's sad that the moderators seem to be better at scanning these mails forums, than the Apple people that should actually be helping us getting silly issues like this fixed. For me Apple has lost a lot of credit with this issue, which is now old and unfixed.

Quick follow-up inquiry for those struggling w/ this issue: Are the mailboxes you're each having this concern w/ all Gmail accounts set-up in Apple Mail, or are they not exclusively Gmail accounts? I spoke w/ Apple support today and they confirmed that they have internal documentation of one user having the same issue and this user was/is running Catalina, both a beta and an official release, and the individual had the same concern as mine, that is, specifically w/ the reordering of Gmail mailboxes in Apple Mail. Looking forward to any feedback and thanks in advance!

I just spoke to a friendly Apple Support guy. Apple now acknowledges that this can occur. No simple fix yet, they are in the investigation phase. Together with the support guy, I downloaded a tool that ran through my related logs and generated a file for me to submit back to Apple, which I did. They will take up contact with me later. So I will follow this up when I know more.

I was called by Apple this week, to further discus this/my case.

The lady politely informed me that it was Google's fault. I was gobsmacked.

I asked her how she thought it was possible that Google could change the order of a bunch of email accounts, simply communicating with IMAP?

Then she told me the truth:

Apple, knows this is happening. The Apple Mail app developers are aware, but so far have not fixed it. There was nothing she could do for me.

I told her the case was not closed and I asked her to call me back in 4 weeks time. Afterwards, when I got the satisfaction survey, I gave Apple support a bad rating and in the comments told them it's time to fix this stupid simple problem. Technically, setting and keeping the order of a list of items (mail accounts) is a walk in the park. Not complicated at all.

It's not like Apple is dealing with a small player on the email field...

I have the following suspicion:

When communication with Google's mailservers fails or times out (or anything else goes wrong, maybe because some accounts are configured on multiple devices and running into IMAP communication limits set by Google), the account is dropped to the bottom of the list of accounts.

[Edited by Moderator]

JuliaCa, beats me why they haven't fixed it. I've now filed a feedback report - maybe if we all did this, it would get fixed.

The folks at Apple never actually look at these forums, unfortunately. :(

MacOS 10.15.5 was released this week.

Wonder if Apple has fixed it... (I can't confirm yet)

Hmmmm.... I had this problem and was very upset.

After I installed OS 10.15.5, my mailboxes seem to be staying in place...

Crossing fingers!

In addition to Mac Mail regularly crashing... it keeps re-arranging my 10 inboxes!!! Fix this BUG Apple. I arrange them the way I want them then come back later or in the morning and they are all re-arranged in some random manner. Really f..n annoying

Same problem here. And also #589 on the my list of recent mac product updates which are 'not the end of the world, but very annoying'