mailboxes

Question

mailboxes

I really need to straighten this out once and for all, and I'm hoping someone here can tell me how to do that. So I've got four accounts in Apple Mail, all of them IMAP (labeled Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp below) On the sidebar of the mail screen it looks like this (question follows after):

-----------------------

ON MY MAC

INBOX (empty, no subfolders)

all incoming

all outgoing

MAC

Junk

Trash

MAILBOXES

Inbox

Moe

Larry

Curly

Shemp

Sent

Moe

Larry

Curly

Shemp

Trash

On my Mac

Moe

Larry

Curly

Shemp

MOE

Deleted Messages

Drafts

Sent Messages

LARRY

Junk

Sent

Trash

REMINDERS

Notes

To Do

SMART MAILBOXES ...

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First, I have to acknowledge that the confusion is of my own making. In trying to streamline things ... well, you see the results. Why Larry has all the Junk and Moe has none, I don't know. Where the mailboxes for Curly and Shemp have gone, no idea. Why there are trash bins scattered in some places but not other, I'm clueless.

What I would like is to merge all incoming mail into one folder, and all outgoing mail into another folder. Then I'll use smartmailboxes to sort. I'd like ONE trash rather than the many that keep popping up.

PLEASE tell me (1) this is possible and then (2) point me in the right direction. If it isn't possible, I'm thinking about jumping ship to PostBox 2.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on May 2, 2011 6:37 PM

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Answer 1

May 2, 2011 7:14 PM in response to Rosina Lippi-Green

Each email account, including those that are IMAP, will have it own set of standard mailbox folders -- Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Junk and Trash. The latter two will often not exist until a message is deleted or marked as Junk. The way they should line up in the Sidebar is all the Inboxes will be beneath an Icon for an Inbox, Sent under an Icon of a paper airplane, etc. When the small black triangle is clicked to turn downward, the separate Inbox, say, for each account will be revealed.

In your line up, something has caused Mail to not designate these folders for the standard purposes. Were there only on or two, then you could open each, click on Mailbox in the menubar, and choose Use This Mailbox For and then select the proper assignment.

In the situation you seem to have, I think you should simply remove all of the IMAP accounts, quit Mail, relaunch, set up each of them anew, and let Mail set things up correctly.

You should be able to see the Inbox as a blend of all four, but if desired, each one separately.

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

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