Create and order, reorder mailboxes in macOS Mail

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Level 1

33 points

Create and order, reorder mailboxes in macOS Mail

I want to create some new mailboxes in the Mailboxes/Inbox column, like I used to do every year, and order them, alphabetically or manually.

However, new mailboxes can now only be created and ordered at the bottom of the left column, below 'On My Mac'.

Interestingly, I can add and order mailboxes via the webmail interface. The new mailboxes are showing up in Mail, but are not showing alphabetically. They are put at the bottom of the /Inbox list.

I don't understand why, since this used to be a matter of right-clicking. I can't reorder existing mailboxes either, which is fine by me as long as they are listed alphabetically, but I can't.

I can't find a solution online either. There are reset instructions via Terminal but the seem to no longer work.

Mac Pro, macOS 10.14

Posted on Dec 8, 2020 12:52 PM

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Answer 1

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Dec 13, 2020 12:13 PM in response to Leon Buijs

Hi Leon Buijs,

We appreciate you reaching out about this behavior you're experiencing ordering mailboxes in the Mail app. We're glad to help in any way we can.

To ensure we understand correctly, it sounds like you're able to manually drag and drop mailboxes that were created On your Mac, and they retain the order you set, but you're unable to do the same for mailboxes created through your email provider's webmail interface. Is this right?

Have you had an opportunity to quit the Mail app before reopening and testing again? If so, what happens after restarting your Mac?

If you find that the issue persists, try starting up in safe mode to verify if the same issue is still occurring. Here's a guide with the steps to start in safe mode:

How to use safe mode on your Mac

Have a great day!

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Answer 2

Leon Buijs Author

Level 1

33 points

Dec 14, 2020 6:28 AM in response to CarlAVII

Hi CarlAVII,

I really appreciate your input :)

It's the other way around: I can create mailboxes, but I can not get them into the /Inbox section in the top of the column, except by doing it via webmail (and restarting macOS Mail).

I could still live with that, as long as the folders were either put in alphabetical order or I'd be able to order them manually, but even though they are shown in alphabetical order in the webmail's window, in the Mail window new folders are shown on the bottom of the /Inbox subset.

So you'd get something like…

A 2019

A 2020

B 2019

B 2020

C 2019

C 2020

A 2021 <- newly created mailbox

And I can't change their order by dragging. I can only drag them into another box.

So far, I tried

restarting Mail
rebuilding mailboxes
shift-starting Mail
starting up in Safe Mode
disabling my second mailaccount (on a different server / host)
disabling this mailaccount / restarting Mail / enabling it again / restarting Mail
creating and re-ordering a new mailbox on my other mailaccount (same behavior)
re-ordering on another Mac

Since I was able to rearrange mailboxes in the past, on both accounts, using the same mailservers, it seems unlikely that is causing it.

Since rearranging mailboxes is impossible on both my Macs (both running latest Mojave 10.14.6, latest Mail 12.4) I'd almost think this is not related to my Macs.. Could this be a bug?

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Answer 3

Leon Buijs Author

Level 1

33 points

Dec 15, 2020 2:52 AM in response to Leon Buijs

201215 I've chatted and later called and screen-shared with Apple Support in Dutch, but unfortunately he could not figure this out either.

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Answer 4

karina184

Community Specialist

Dec 14, 2020 8:16 AM in response to Leon Buijs

Hi Leon Buijs,

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation. You've certainly completed excellent and thorough troubleshooting steps.

In order to investigate further and more directly at this point, you'll want to reach out to the experts in Apple Support. Use the website link here to determine your preferred contact method:

Get Support

We're committed to helping get to the bottom of this with you, so your patience is greatly appreciated!

Have a great day.

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Create and order, reorder mailboxes in macOS Mail

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