Duplicate Mail archive folders

Hi Niko - once you cleaned up your mailbox using my method you can trigger Mail to create a new Archive folder by selecting the messages to be archived and then choosing Message > Archive. That will create a new "special" Archive folder.

Cheers

Michael

Here is what I eventually did:

1. Following the suggestion from michaelw, created an offline "Archived" folder in the ON MY MAC section.

2. Moved all the contents of the multiple Archive mailboxes to the Archived folder and its subfolders.

3. Deleted the empty Archive mailboxes. The Archive container itself hadn't disapperead after restart. Great!

4. Now using the Archive shortcut to move messages to the "special" Archive mailbox in the MAILBOXES section. No more duplicate mailboxes inside -- everything goes in the Archive root directory.

5. Using the Move To and Copy To shortcuts to sort and archive messages in the offline Archived folder and its subfolders ON MY MAC.

This has solved the problem for me, at least for now.

Great to hear 🙂

When I have deleted the On My Mac folders under Archive heading and restarted Mail.app, the Archive heading has disappeared. I guess this is what you refer to by cleaning up the mailbox. But when I choose Message > Archive, the duplicate On My Mac folders are created again under Archive.

So I'm still unable to fix the pronlem, but as said in another comment, I am able to make things worse though. 😉 By tricking Mail.app to think I'm starting it for the first time by deleting the V2 folder under ~/Library/Mail/, I get three duplicate On My Mac folders instead of two.

This is VERY annoying apple, please fix it !!!

I've tried many of the solutions on here and none have worked. Which isn't a supprise, because, at least for me, it's GUI bug.

If I drag an email to the first of the duplicate folders, it highlights the last one. Doesn't seem as if it has anything to do with the underlying mailbox structure.

I have a clean install of Mavericks and manually entered in my account data (6 accounts). So it's nothing to do with the upgrade or import process, either.

Apple have been really disapointing when it comes to their software quality, recently. I doubt they'll even care about a bug like this. Even though it is actually a major, almost show-stopper bug, as someone will try to delete the "duplicate" and loose all of their archived email.

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Mail/Provide Mail Feedback

The suggestion from popfilms seems to be the best for the moment. I believe that a lot of the problem comes from the fact that most folks believe that an "archive consists of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value" (from Wikipedia). I suspect that most commenters in this thread are seeking to put old E-mails into "cold storage", but keep them around just in case they might be needed again.

Apple apparently has a different idea about the meaning of "archive":

Archive messages

You can use the Archive mailbox as a handy place to store messages that you’re done with, but don’t want to delete yet.

Select one or more messages to archive.
If you select a conversation, all messages in the conversation are archived.

Choose Message > Archive.
An Archive mailbox is created in the sidebar for each account whose messages you archive, and the archived messages are automatically moved there.
Archived messages remain in the Archive mailbox until you delete or move them. Depending on the account type, the Archive mailbox is stored on the mail server.

This is quoted from the Mail Help file. So it seems clear that in Apple's view, an E-mail archive is not expected to be used for long-term storage. Also, the Archive is intended to be linked to an E-mail account. As "On My Mac" is not an E-mail account, this may explain the anomalous behavior, if you try to use it as an Apple "Archive".

Having said that, it would be nice if Apple would address that anomalous behavior, so that people don't delete large numbers of old messages accidentally.

I am now using Yosemite on my MBP i7 17" (Mid 2010), and I found a workaround for this issue within my Mail 8.0 (which is the version under 10.10). ...Let me emphasize I'm not exactly sure my resolution will work for everyone, although I don't know why it wouldn't; so, if you attempt implementing, please make sure you've got a backup / clone from which you can restore in case of any subsequent problems.

This is what the issue previously looked like:

Here's what the workaround now look like:

Procedure I used:

1. Using the +button (found in the bottom lefthand corner of Mail's window), I created a new Mailbox, which can be named anything (I happened to name it - Mail Vault). This new Mailbox will reside at the Location "On My Mac" selection. (If one selects the dropdown menu, to see options, "iCloud" is the only other option. Since I want these emails to reside on my MBP, I selected "On My Mac" and typed in the name.)

2. Then, I dragged all, but only, the sub-folders (and emails therein) from the previous, On My Mac Mailbox (I used the lower On My Mac, below iCloud) to my new, Mail Vault Mailbox. This drag to copy process, in real time, deleted those subfolders (and emails) out of both On My Mac Mailboxes. Now, all my saved emails, from my On My Mac Mailbox, were now only nested within their same subfolders of my Mail Vault Mailbox.

3. Once I completed the above (and had no subfolders or emails in the (2) On My Mac Mailboxes), the Archive Mailbox was empty, except what showed in the iCloud sub-Mailbox.

4. I then selected the lower, On My Mac Mailbox (under Archive), did an Option-Click to select Delete Mailbox and deleted the On My Mac Mailbox. (Upon doing so, both On My Mac Mailboxes were deleted, even though I'd only selected the lower one.)

5. I then did the same and deleted the iCloud Mailbox. And all that now remains, is the Archive Mailbox (although I do have several emails actually archived in my web iCloud, Mail Archive.) ...After doing so, if one selects the remaining Archive Mailbox, those emails previously viewed in the iCloud Mailbox, are now directly viewable from the Archive Mailbox.

6. As result of all the above and have emails I receive and want to keep on my Mac, I simply drag them from my Inbox to the respective, Mail Vault subfolder. ...This process replicates what I was previously doing when I had the (double) On My Mac Mailbox situation under Archive.

BUT, voila!, no more double, On My Mac Mailboxes as is evidenced there being no content triangle just left of the Archive Mailbox. 🙂 ...I've never understood what was at work with this double Mailbox situation, but I'm glad to be rid of it.

I've using this revised setup for over a week, from this writing, and have not had any issues whatsoever. 😎

...Just as a precaution, I did copy and save a backup (after completing this workaround) of my Mail Vault, which can be found within the Mail folder within one's Library folder.

Again if one proceeds with what I've done, complete a backup / clone before starting. 🙂

Can we get a fix from apple - or will this be up to the users?

THINK DIFFERENT!

Is there an experienced person in the discussion groups that can tell us why there are TWO 'On My Mac' mailboxes in the Archive category?

This might be of interest to all of us to know.

If one leave both, when archive to one it appears in both: is this taken up twice the space in this repetition; if not I'd be content to leave both

and not worry about it. Is this duplicate with the same name using up twice the space by having two, or not? Obviously I am not the only one interested in knowing -- thank you for you time and consideration

And how would that happen accidentally - for example? -by copying it into a mailbox and putting it into archive 'on my mac' at the same time and then if out of archives, out of everywhere? is that how it works?

According to my observations, it is a bug in the Mail.app GUI. The two (ore more) "on my mac" archive mailboxes represent the same physical mailbox storage (Archive.mbox file).They all point to the same file. Every change (move, delete, etc..) to the content of one of these mailbox representations will affect all of them equally. If you delete one "on my mac" archive, the (one and only) physical Archive.mbox file will be deleted.

So the archive system itself works, it is just the GUI that is misleading and exposes a high risk of accidental deletion.

The bad part is, although Apple obviously gives a flying f... about this, there is no real alternative to Apple Mail. The closest thing to an alternative is Outlook. While being a fine email client too, it has no archive feature at all. 😟

Airmail is selling pretty well in the App Store.

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Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I consider none of them as a real alternative for me. I'm searching for alternative mail clients for ages (to be specific, since official Snow Leopard support ended).

First, unlike Apple Mail and Outlook 2011, almost any of these programs use monolithic mbox mail storage. Some, like Thunderbird, offer optional maildir storage, it is very buggy and slow until this day. I used it for about a year and decided to hate it.

Second, none provide the ease of use, functionality and reliability of Apple Mail 4.5 (Snow Leopard).

So even if Apple Mail 7.3 (Mavericks), which I use now, is very buggy and not as refined as v.4.5, it is still the best of all Mac mail clients. The UI is still what suits best for me too. As I said, only Outlook 2011 is similar to my beloved Apple Mail 4.5. If I could use v.4.5 on Mavericks, or even on a newer Mac OS in the future, I would prefer it to any later version or third party alternative.

BTW, I don't like the Sparrow-alike UI of Airmail. Besides that, as an Appstore objector, I refuse to use any Appstore-only software at all.

It is pretty sad what has become of Apple software quality since Snow Leopard. But it is still the best. That's what I called the "bad part". 😉