Email organization for Apple Mail is horrible

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Level 1

8 points

Email organization for Apple Mail is horrible

Can you help a sister out on this???? Don't make me move all my accounts to Google, or worse... an Outlook account.

My question is why is there not an option to start typing the name of the folder where you want to move your messages to that actually works? I am a real estate agent, so I have active clients, closed clients, and prospective clients which I use 2 business for in addition to 2 personal accounts. I love the fact that I can get all my mail at once, but I have about 1000 folders throughout those 4 accounts. When I am in Gmail on the web, to move an email to the proper folder all I have to do is click move and start typing in the name of the folder it needs to go in. Pops right up. I don't have to use a lot of mental energy trying to remember if I set up that client's email in one business account or another, or if it is a friend in one of my personal accounts, then check which email account I have open on the sidebar in Mail, and then whether or not I had gotten around to moving that folder from a pending file to a closed file. It's brilliant.... On Google, I literally just type the first number of a house address and it pops up like magic! When I just went to use move on Apple Mail, I typed in "K" for Kenny, and it brought me to Leslie... When you type more than one letter I am not sure what it does, but somehow I feel like I accidentally pushed a function button that I have never used... no idea why. It's a mystery.

Listen, I get that Apple is all about drop and drag, but this is a serious issue for those of us who have more than a couple of email folders. I get a knot in my stomach when I know I have to drag a file to somewhere that I can't currently see because I am afraid I will drop it into the wrong place if the scrolling feature either gets stuck, goes too fast, or too slow and I get nervous and drop it. I have ALL of my contacts in my Apple account. I haven't had a PC in over 20 years. I bought the original iPhone and haven't looked back. I was even one of the geeks who first got an Apple Watch AND AirPods and was mercilessly picked on by my then teen daughters.

I have spoken to someone about this at your support line, but he basically told me "all you have to do is "drag and drop"! If anyone else has the solution, I am all ears!

Thanks!

Posted on Jul 21, 2022 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

Allan Jones

Level 9

79,148 points

Jul 21, 2022 11:57 AM in response to dctracy

This Apple article shows the problem—what most of us call "folders," Apple calls "mailboxes":

Create or delete mailboxes in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Fooled me too!

Once you set up a folder/mailbox, you can manage the sorting in several ways in addition to manually doing it

1) You can set up a Smart Mailbox that uses attributes in a message—sender, subject, address, etc—to find similar messages in other folders and display then in the Smart folder.. See:

Use Smart Mailboxes in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

2) Your can use Rules to place messages with certain attributes into their own folder/mailbox:

Use rules to manage emails you receive in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Number 2 is how I organize mine.

Once you create and use a mailbox, Mail learns from past messages if the message can be moved to a mailbox you made, and gives you the one-click option to move. I have a folder, "ASC Mailings," set up to receive all Apple forum notifications. The "Move to.. "option is part of the default toolbar.

NOTE: These may not be foolproof, not from Apple's end but rather the senders' end. Minor changes senders make in some mail attributes may trip uo auto-sort via Smart Mailbox or Rules. However the one-click option is usually maintained. This is far from a regular occurance for me so I don't consider it burdensome.

More Apple suggestions form Mail searching here:

Search for emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

ku4hx

Level 7

23,694 points

Jul 21, 2022 9:53 AM in response to dctracy

Mail is little more than a means to provide local access to a web service. As such, it does what it does quite well and hasn't changed much through the last several OS versions.

If you require a more sophisticated email app, I recommend Thunderbird.

Or maybe even the stand alone version of Microsoft Outlook.

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Answer 3

dctracy Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 21, 2022 10:45 AM in response to ku4hx

Thank you for your reply. When you said it is more than a means to provide local access to a web service, did you mean that the app works well? I do like Mail as an email service. I just would like a better way to get messages into the proper folder.

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Answer 4

dctracy Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 21, 2022 1:35 PM in response to Allan Jones

Thank you for your reply. I will look into the ins and outs of Mail rules. Every time I have tried to set them up I have issues. I will dive into the why and how. Thank you.

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Email organization for Apple Mail is horrible

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