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Mac Mail - Missing Flag Colors in Sidebar - Catalina

Mac Mail allows flagging of email messages with 7 distinct colors. I have been using these flags for many, many years. Since upgrading to Catalina only 5 of the seven flag colors appear in the sidebar, so I can no longer view 2 of my flag categories. Mail still allows me to flag messages in all colors. This is extremely frustrating and annoying. Macs are supposed to make things easy.


What's up?

How do I fix this?


MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Oct 18, 2020 9:04 AM

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Posted on Oct 19, 2020 10:05 AM

If by "Sidebar" you mean the Mailbox list, the Flagged folder is a search folder and shows whichever flags it finds. If you have all seven colors used, and it is only showing five of them, it may be that the Mailboxes need to be rebuilt (Mailbox menu > Rebuild), or Spotlight needs to be reindexed.


You could also try making Smart Mailboxes for the colors that are missing (or all of them). If you create a smart mailbox looking for the flag colors that are not listed under Flagged Mailbox, and they are empty, it would definitely be a Mailbox Rebuild or Spotlight issue.


If they do show up, then it is likely one of the many oddities in Mail.

1 reply
Question marked as Best reply

Oct 19, 2020 10:05 AM in response to nevogel

If by "Sidebar" you mean the Mailbox list, the Flagged folder is a search folder and shows whichever flags it finds. If you have all seven colors used, and it is only showing five of them, it may be that the Mailboxes need to be rebuilt (Mailbox menu > Rebuild), or Spotlight needs to be reindexed.


You could also try making Smart Mailboxes for the colors that are missing (or all of them). If you create a smart mailbox looking for the flag colors that are not listed under Flagged Mailbox, and they are empty, it would definitely be a Mailbox Rebuild or Spotlight issue.


If they do show up, then it is likely one of the many oddities in Mail.

Mac Mail - Missing Flag Colors in Sidebar - Catalina

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