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Level 1

32 points

Mail.app: Automatically file my reply in same folder?

I like Mail.app (v4.5) and use it daily. But a never-ending source of irritation for me is that every time I reply to an existing message that's filed in a given mail folder or subfolder, my reply gets stored in the "Sent" folder, and I have to manually move it to the folder containing the message to which I replied. I send quite a lot of replies, so this is a constant annoyance. Is there any way to make Mail.app automatically save my sent reply in the same folder as the message to which I replied?

Thanks,

~ Justin

Mac mini (Aluminum) 2.4 GHz-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 9, 2012 8:49 AM

Best reply

dnine

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Jun 22, 2012 3:15 PM

I don't think this is so much an issue of whether to put things in folders or not - it's an issue of how Mail handles threading...

What jd is going for here is something that we already have in web-based mail apps like gmail. My impression is that he would like to see the complete conversation in one place (i.e. the recipients replies as well as his are in chronological order in the same thread). Usually your own reply will be quoted when a recipient responds to your email, but there is no guarantee of this - some people like to delete the endless quotes before they reply so yours might not be on there. More importantly, what if you are in the midst of a conversation and the person you wrote to hasn't replied in quite a long time - you want to see the last thing you wrote to them and how the conversation had evolved before you send another message. The problem is that the last thing you wrote to them is in your sent mail but isn't yet in the thread because no one has replied to it yet. This means you have to sorta bounce back and forth between your sent mail and the thread to see the whole conversation.

I agree that it is very frustrating, and actually I use the Gmail web interface primarily for this reason - if you reply to a message you should be able to at any time click on a single thread and see what both parties have said in its entirety.

Seems easy enough to make this an option for those of us who want it, no?

View in context

24 replies

Jun 10, 2014 4:06 AM in response to jdmcmurtry

Thunderbird for Mac has this feature, and it's free. I've been looking for this feature in a Mac Email client and am now overjoyed that Mozilla's T-Bird quietly did it.

joszwa

Level 1

4 points

Jun 19, 2014 7:00 AM in response to JaimeDerecho

Had the same question.... but where is the option? Downloaded latest version... however cannot find it.

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jun 19, 2014 7:31 AM in response to joszwa

joszwa

Level 1

4 points

Jun 19, 2014 8:06 AM in response to joszwa

got it; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuration-options-sending-messages

Jun 19, 2014 6:19 PM in response to dnine

I agree that it is very frustrating, and actually I use the Gmail web interface primarily for this reason - if you reply to a message you should be able to at any time click on a single thread and see what both parties have said in its entirety.

Seems easy enough to make this an option for those of us who want it, no?

We have that option in Mavericks Mail. It's called conversations.

Jun 20, 2014 2:27 AM in response to jdmcmurtry

Best way is like it is implemented in LotusNotes. When sending a reply you are asked where to store the answer. That's the way it should work; freedom. In LotusNotes all email is in a database. Wonderfull concept. Easy to maintain in relation to archiving. Easy to seperate kind of mails... e.g. for business purposes, just create a seperate database! I'm still wondering why this architecture is not implemented in other email clients. Just for email... (because LotusNotes is mote than email; groupware). For people familiar with Lotus Notes I emphase; only the architecture is wonderful. All user-interfaces are a disaster in this software....

Oct 14, 2015 8:12 PM in response to Community User

actually apple should come forward to solve this issue why the development team not responding to such issue.

BobHarris

Level 9

53,195 points

Oct 15, 2015 6:22 AM in response to subhash10

This is a user-to-user from. You are not talking to Apple here. If you wish to draw Apple's attention to your issue, you should report it to Apple directly.

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Oct 25, 2016 8:14 PM in response to jdmcmurtry

Justin,

Did you ever get the sorted...

I have the same issue, thousands of email, concerning many concurrent projects.

I have them sorted into MailBoxes by Projects, EPC Contractors, Vendors, Competitors, Internal Planning, etc, etc...

It serves me very well, and I do the same at home for all my personal correspondence.

Now: I do seem to recall that an earlier version of Mail did infact place the reply in the sam folder as the original message, but the functionality disappeared.

I would appreciate if you could let me know what you have learned since your original dialogue of 2012.

Mail.app: Automatically file my reply in same folder?