Moving to iCloud will delete my Smart Mailboxes?

Oh my, you are quite right, they are not 'Smart', and it seems neither am I, apologies all over 😊

😁 No worries - happens to us all!!

My smart mailboxes disappeared after switching to iCloud. There must be some setting (that some are on) that retain the smart mailboxes locally on one's Mac, and some setting (that others are on) that delete the smart boxes.

On a related note, my Mail's "favorites" bar (on which one's most-used regular mailboxes can be dragged) converted to a generic default set after my move to iCloud.

I think the distinction is between those who access iCloud by going to the web (icloud.com & signing in), where Smart Mailboxes will not appear; and those who import their mail into the Mail application on the desktop or laptop..where Smart Mailboxes continue to appear. (At least that's my latest guess...after reading the other answers)

I had to stop too before migrating to iCloud. I've been using .Mac aka MobileMe for almost since day one. This iCloud thing has got to be the worse move ever. When the screen pops up saying you will no longer be able to sync Smartboxes, I had to think what do they mean? Then I realized when I first got .Mac, Apple promoted how you can transfer or store your computer settings for whenever you upgrade or erase your hard drive. This included Mail. So when I bought a MBP, all my Mail settings transfered from my Powerbook without any cable connection because everything was synced to MobileMe. Just log into Mobileme and everything is transfered. When I decide to use my Powerbook, I could sync my MobileMe settings, and not lose anything that helps me run my business. 😕 But that's a no go.

This really *****.. I don't see the benifits to moving to iCloud when it is bare bones. Basically everything that uses a Macbook/iMac is disabled. People who use their Macs will take longer to transfer from an older Mac to a newer one. So basically when you get a new Mac, you have to transfer everything manually. This takes us back pre-AppleTalk.

I upgraded to Mountain Lion and all my smart mailboxes and signatures have been deleted. Everytime I re-add them they just get deleted again when I close Mail down. This is so !@#$$% frustrating and I cannot find an answer to this anywhere!!!!

Have you tried deleting ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com\~apple\~mail/Data/MailData ? I appear to have resolved my problems and I think it may have been as a result of deleting this folder. No guarantees, it wasn't the only step I took.

Thanks DMK73. For some strange reason I switched my macbook on a few days back and every smartbox I had ever created (which had dissapeared) was suddenly there and has remained there. I remain cautiously optimistic! Thanks so much for your suggestion. I will hang on to it in case they dissapear again.