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Q: how to delete duplicate folders in MacMail?

I am on OSX 10.4.11 and my MacMaill has two folders for 'Inbox', two folders for 'Sent', and two folders for 'Junk'.

There is a main Inbox folder with all my sub folders, and there is also another main folder "My .Mac Account" which has duplicates of all my other sub folders!!!

How can I get MacMail to have one folder for each? Hope someone can help please as it's very confusing and taking up lots of space.

Posted on Aug 1, 2014 4:12 AM

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Q: how to delete duplicate folders in MacMail?

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  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 2, 2014 9:14 AM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 2, 2014 9:14 AM in response to Doad

    There is a main Inbox folder with all my sub folders, and there is also another main folder "My .Mac Account" which has duplicates of all my other sub folders!!!

    Can you explain what "other" subfolders are?

     

    Is it a POP or IMAP account?

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 4, 2014 1:30 AM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 1:30 AM in response to BDAqua

    Dear BDAqua

     

    Thanks a lot for replying and apologies for taking so long to get back to you, but I was away for a couple of days.

     

    It is an IMAP account.

     

    There is one main "Inbox" folder which has 2 folders within it.

    One folder is titled "My .Mac Account", which has sub folders within it containing utilities, personal, Amazon etc.

    The other folder is titled "iCloud Mail" and is a complete duplicate of the above including duplicates of all the "other" sub folders mentioned above.

     

    Hope you can help with this please and thanks very much if you can.

     

    Doad

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 4, 2014 11:00 AM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 11:00 AM in response to Doad

    Hmmm, this is strange, do you have 2 eMail accounts maybe, & one forwarding to the other?

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 4, 2014 11:10 AM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 11:10 AM in response to BDAqua

    Thanks again for replying, and it is very strange and annoying.

     

    I only have one MacMail account with 2 email addresses, so I don't know if there's anything else you can think of please?

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 4, 2014 1:21 PM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 1:21 PM in response to Doad

    In Mail's menu, choose View>Message>Show Long Headers, compare the To: & CC: fields, are there 2 name there, or different names?

     

    In Mail, do you have 2 accounts setup for that Mac Mail addy?

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 4, 2014 1:44 PM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 1:44 PM in response to BDAqua

    I really appreciate your help, thanks again.

     

    I've shown the long headers and only see one name in the 'To' field, but don't see any 'CC' field. I do have two email addresses, gngraphics@mac.com and george.nicol@mac.com. In mail I only have the one account. Does all this make sense to you?

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 4, 2014 6:33 PM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 4, 2014 6:33 PM in response to Doad

    Is it 2 separate accounts, or is one an alias in the other account?

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 5, 2014 1:41 AM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 1:41 AM in response to BDAqua

    It appears to be one separate account with an alias.

    When I go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts,

    under Accounts it shows an icon for My .Mac Account .Mac

    and under that there is an icon for iCloud Mail IMAP.

    My Mac.Account has gngraphics@mac.com as the email address.

    iCloud Mail Account has gngraphics@mac.com, george.nicol@mac.com as the email address.

     

    I hope that might help and thanks again for your help and being so patient, much appreciated.

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 5, 2014 10:01 AM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 10:01 AM in response to Doad

    Is the "My .Mac Account .Mac" also IMAP?

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 5, 2014 11:27 AM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 11:27 AM in response to BDAqua

    It doesn't say that it is IMAP and I have checked through all the preferences and it doesn't say if it is or not I'm afraid.

    When I go to the menu > Mailbox, it mentions 'Synchronize' to either My .Mac Account or iCloud Mail. Would it be worth trying that?

    Thanks again for your continued help.

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 5, 2014 12:13 PM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 12:13 PM in response to Doad

    In Mail>Preferences>Accounts, under the names of the accounts at left it should say POP or IMAP.

  • by Doad,

    Doad Doad Aug 5, 2014 12:24 PM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 12:24 PM in response to BDAqua

    On my main Mac which is in my studio, the My .Mac Account doesn't have either IMAP or POP, and the iCloud Mail has IMAP after it.

    I'm working on my MacBook at the moment which is linked to my main Mac, and have just checked the preferences and noticed that this has MobileMe IMAP as the account, and there are no duplicates on my MacBook.

    Thanks again.

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Aug 5, 2014 5:50 PM in response to Doad
    Level 10 (123,670 points)
    Aug 5, 2014 5:50 PM in response to Doad

    Well, if you want to try to delete that one, first back it all up...

     

    First Quit Mail, then I'd backup these two Mail folders, by right clicking on them in the Finder, then choose Archive/Compress.

     

    Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail

     

    Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail Downloads

     

    (Could be a different folder here if you chose such in Mail Prefs)

     

    Right click on that Mail folder, choose archive, you'll get everything in the folder, and the folder itself in a file called Mail.zip, move it to a safe place, same for the Mail Downloads folder... only the plist is separate.

     

    /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

  • by Doad,Solvedanswer

    Doad Doad Aug 6, 2014 8:04 AM in response to BDAqua
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 6, 2014 8:04 AM in response to BDAqua

    Apologies for delay in replying as I've been out most of the day.

    Thanks a lot for your detailed reply on how to delete these pesky duplicates. I'll certainly give it a try soon.

    You've been very helpful indeed and thanks for your patience and all your help.

    All the best.