Duplicate Mail archive folders

On the OS version I am using, at any rate:

I got so fed up with this 2 On My Mac folders under Archives and not knowing it they are uses twice the space, here is what I choose to do. I deleted the Archive mailbox and all the folders in it, AFTER I "moved" contents to appropriate folders. Decided to have a folder called "SPECIAL items in other folders" .

Also with Archive deleted the event that when something is deleted in Archives if it has also been 'copied to' another folder both items will be deleted is avoided too.

Smart mailboxes have this characteristic that if you delete from a smart mailbox then that item is deleted everywhere, in all the folders. I choose not to use 'smart' mailboxes either.

There major appeal of finding items in folders more efficiently I bypass by using the spotlight (the magnifying icon on the top menu to the far left) and that works exceptionally well.

I am having exactly the same problem, having upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. The contents of the duplicate "On My Mac" mailboxes are identical, and deleting one of them deletes the other. Help asap, please.

Same issue here. Warning: DO NOT TRY TO DELETE ONE OF THEM. You will Delete both.

Before I installed Mountain Lion (ML) I cloned my Lion startup and left it untouched. I then created a blank DMG file and backed-up my Mail & Mail Downloads folders (Users/username/Library) from the clone to the disk image.

I ran Mail.app in ML and it updated my emails and gave me four On My Mac boxes.

I created a new Mail folder and called it "My eMails", then clicked on the top On My Mac box, which opened the fourth On My Mac box (the 2nd & 3rd On My Mac boxes did the same, so I am assuming that there is only one On My Mac box that is populated, the others are simply aliases??). So I highlighted all the folders in the 4th On My Mac box and dragged & dropped it on the newly created "My eMails" folder and the four On My Mac boxes disappeared on their own and I have just one set of folders now. I simply renamed "My eMails" folder to something more descriptive.

Important thing to do is back up your Mail & Mail Downloads folders which I do regularly anyway.

I hope that all the above makes sense.

It looks like you have simply created a new mailbox outside of the Archive mailbox and moved your emails into it. But how do we fix the Archive itself? As soon as I archive emails in the Archive folder, the On My Mac duplicate mailboxes are recreated.

I don't use Mail's Archive folder as I have mine named & numbered, Archive 01, Archive 02 and so on. Helps me to keep track of 3500 emails.

I have the same symptoms as well. I upgraded from Lion to ML.

I am also experiencing this same issue, but as has been indicated, deleting one of the "On My Mac" folders will delete both. 😕

I initially did delete one when I first saw both, but was able to recover those archived emails (in an "On My Mac" folder) as I had a fresh clone of my 10.7.4 set-up before installing Mountain Lion.

(If you don't have a fresh backup or clone, from immediately prior to installing Mountain Lion, I don't know that you can recover from the deletion. 😢 )

To regain my previous archive, I copied (drag-drop) the complete Mail and Mail Downloads folders that were nested in my clone's User/Library/... to my new Mountain Lion User/Library/... Once, I re-opened Mail, both "On My Mac" folders were back, but I was glad to see them since it's an important archive. 🙂

Most likely this is a bug and will require a fix by Apple.

As both folders are copies (meaning, all one's archived emails are there), I've reconciled myself to not worry about it since a fix should be forthcoming. 😎

I have 5 On my Mac archives since i upgraded to ML ... they are all empty it seems but below the Trash there is the On my Mac which contains all my folders and emails (the hideable one) Do You think it is safe to delete the archives?

In the Archives i also have the @.me archive with the mails i put there in it...

same problem here. is there a permanent fix yet?

i have just tried moving all the contents of my archive folder into another folder, and then deleting the duplicated archive folders. however, when i reopen mac mail and try to archive something, it creates the 3 duplicate folders all over again. seems there is no solution or workaround to this at the moment...

Same issue here, hoping for resolution soon. I had my own "archive" folder created before the upgrade and was pleased that there was now an official folder, but the functionality is terrible. If anyone has any suggestions please post them. Thanks

Yes exactly as Lextel said, I also already had my own Archive folder. It seems that is what has caused the problem. A fix soon would be appreciated. And I can confirm the recent update 10.8.1 didn't fix the problem 😟

Just want to add here that the update didn't fix the issue for me either.

Hoping for a solution soon.

I also had an 'Archive' folder, and got this result.

After I deleted one and lost both, I recovered via Time Machine; When I renamed a folder 'Archive' I was right bck in the same boat.