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Can I get rid of Smart Mailboxes?

I have got 7 email addresses and below them are 7 Smart Mailboxes which I do not want.


Any way of deleting them?

Posted on Mar 24, 2022 10:38 AM

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Mar 25, 2022 1:50 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Nothing happens when I control-click.


This is what I see . . . note that all boxes have been collapsed for security reasons in this screenshot. There are 7 inboxes.


Everything under Favourites is what I use.


Half way down you can see the title "Smart Mailboxes" with my 7 email accounts repeated.


When I hover over each one I get to the right a + sign in a circle and a disclosure arrow.


Control-clicking on any of the mailboxes or even the title "Smart Mailboxes" has no effect.


Note that I am on Big Sur.



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Mar 25, 2022 2:14 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

One of my accounts is Google.


When I expand it, there is an extra heading called "Important".


If I control-click "Important" I get this window with a delete option.



However, none of the other mailboxes has this "Important" heading and control-clicking on anything else results in a pop-up with fewer options and no delete.




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Mar 25, 2022 3:25 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks for the information Luis.


Reading between the lines it looks as though it is impossible to delete the smart mailboxes . . . the best that can be done is to minimise them which is what I had done.


I object to even seeing the name of a smart (stupid) mailbox but it looks as though I will have to learn to live with it.


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Mar 26, 2022 3:39 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Sorry to be a PITA but I think I have got my head around the problem at last.


I never had any Smart Mailboxes . . . just the meaningless heading with my proper mailboxes residing by accident below it and I was mistakenly assuming they were smart mailboxes!


I have now deleted my Favourites leaving just the original mailboxes with the empty titles "Smart Mailboxes" and "Favourites" below them as in the screenshot below.


There is just one big problem which must be incredibly simple to solve but is completely eluding me . . . I can only view the emails in one account at a time.


How do I amalgamate all the emails from all my accounts into one mailbox so that they are all displayed simultaneously?


Note that I have collapsed all the accounts so no mailbox/emails are displayed for security reasons


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Mar 26, 2022 7:32 AM in response to dialabrain

You are not understanding me.


I know about the disclosure arrow and there are no longer any Favourites because I deleted them last night.


I would like to create a mailbox to house all my accounts without creating any favourites or is that impossible in Mail 14.0?


It certainly is not in Mail 13.4 on my Mac mini where at the top of the left column it says "Mailboxes" and underneath is an "Inbox" which when opened up reveals all 7 of my accounts and not a favourite in sight. All emails from any of the accounts appears in the next column. Like this . . .




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Mar 26, 2022 9:42 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I forgot to add: you can drag the word Favourites, so it comes out on top. Don't worry about all the rest, you can keep them closed down (but each account will always be there, of course).


It can be as simple as the following image, or even simpler - I have several Favourites, but you may not want them, and that's fine - they are your Favourites.


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Mar 25, 2022 2:22 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

For "Important", as you can see, there is "Delete Mailbox".

For the inboxes, of course, there isn't! You certainly need an inbox for your account!

That doesn't mean that you need to see it. You can just collapse the "Google" account by twirling closed the little triangle next to the + sign, and only use the Favorites to handle your mail.


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Mar 25, 2022 3:43 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

No, no, no!!!!


You CAN delete Smart mailboxes, as Iyou yourself have shown: control-click, Delete Mailbox.


Maybe you cannot erase the words “Smart Mailboxes”, or maybe it will disappear if there aren’t any… I like mine, but you can try and see what you get.

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Mar 25, 2022 8:40 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

WARNING - Vocabulary mismatch! You have been saying "smart mailboxes" all along.


These are NOT smart mailboxes! The smart mailboxes are below the actual words "Smart Mailboxes" - the ones redacted.


These under "Google" are real mailboxes that are part how your gmail is structured. When you send an e-mail it goes to Sent, when you receive it goes to Inbox, and so on. You CAN'T have e-mail without them. They are used automatically.


Just twirl that triangle next to "Google" closed, and don't worry about it. That is it.


FWIW: A smart mailbox is just a set of rules. It updates as your content changes - like a Smart Folder in FCP is not an event, or a folder, but it just a set of criteria, and will show whatever matches that criteria at any given point in time, so do Smart Mailboxes in Mail. Again, this has nothing to do with those boxes on your Google account.

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Mar 25, 2022 8:51 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I am not concerned with the Google account. All the other 6 accounts have similar boxes except for the "Important" one.


Every one of the 7 mailboxes above the "Smart Mailbox" label is repeated under it. So what are they?


Yes, I can minimise each one to a one line name but I can't get rid of them. So I will have to try to ignore them.

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Mar 25, 2022 8:56 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

As I said before, ALL accounts have Inbox, Sent, Bin, etc. That is just how e-mail works.


Each account has its own separate boxes. They all appear on the sidebar.


At the top, there is "Favourites" - where YOU put er.... your Favourites. These may include "All Inboxes", "All Sent" and "All Bins", for example; and it is very convenient. If that is all you need, then, by all means, use just that. But if you at some point need to access a box specific to one account, it will be there.

By the way, I have THOUSANDS of e-mails. You probably do too. Do you have them all in one box???? I have dozens of separate boxes for filing stuff. They do NOT all appear in Favourites. They appear either under the respective account or - my personal preference - under "On my Mac".

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Can I get rid of Smart Mailboxes?

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