Archive folder in Apple Mail is heavily populated

Question

Level 2

229 points

Archive folder in Apple Mail is heavily populated

When I receive mail, I read it and either delete it or I file it into one of many mail folders I have made under "On My Mac". And I back up my data in a few different ways, nost notably I clone the entire HD to a backup drive using cloing software (SuperDuper) quite often.

That said, is there any use, reason, need for me to allow the Archive folder to be massively populated with seemingly every email I've received in about the previous three years??? The folder is absolutely huge and it takes my Mail app a long time to close when I shutdown the Mac these days. I'm wondering if having that Archive folder be emptied now and then would help with that Mail app shutdown process.

Any real need or reason to keep this Archive folder populated??? Will it even let me delete its contents since I haven't yet tried???

thanks... bob

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 5, 2015 8:18 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Apr 26, 2017 5:40 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I'm looking at my gmail account settings online and I have a blank screen instead of the screen you show in this reply and the screen shown in the reply right above it. Nothing for me to check or uncheck. Am I somehow looking in the wrong place?

Reply

Answer 2

Apr 26, 2017 5:53 AM in response to David Gardner7

I don't know why you get a blank screen for settings. It appears you are in the correct place. Do any of the other settings open up such as General?

It works fine for me in Safari. Try another browser.

Reply

Answer 3

Feb 5, 2015 8:28 AM in response to Robert Paris

Well you said you save messages to mailboxes under On My Mac. I assume those are the only one important to you. So, why do you even have an Archive folder?

First, you need to figure out why it's there and what is saving them to Archive. Gmail has a default setting for saving all emails to archive, which is what may be happening there. So, maybe give a bit more info on the archive situation and what is creating that.

If you have messages saved to local folders, then you should be able to delete those in the archive folder. Don't know if it will impact the performance of Mail, but it won't hurt.

Reply

Answer 4

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 8:42 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Hmmm... Are you telling me I made the Archive Folder??? I don't think I did or at least I don't recall having made it. I see that it contains mail going back nearly three years. I was assuming it was part of the default for the Apple Mail app. Granted I obviously haven't paid much attention to that, thus my reason I can't say for sure that I made it or the app puts it up by default. I was assuming the latter when I made my post.

I only got curious recently as to what might be making my Apple Mail app take a long time to quit when I shutdown my mac. In fact, it sometimes causes the shutdown to abort. Clearly something needs cleaing up and that's what even prompted me to look at that folder and say, "hey, what is this and why is it here?" I have maybe 100 subfolders so it's pretty easy to sort of ignore one until now.

So can you or anyone say whether or not that Archive folder comes along by default in Apple Mail under the new OS X Yosemite???

And again, the main question is will it cost me something if I delete it, considering what I said above about how I save mail. My inbox usually has either no emails in it or 4 or 5 at most, if I am say deciding what to do about some certain email. Otherwise, I read em, save them to one of my sub-folders (but never to the Archive Folder) or I delete them. And now and then I empty the trash.

I looked to see if there is some Mail preference that says "make or don't make and Archive Folder" but there is no such thing. I'm pretty sure I did NOT make that Archive folder. I think Apple Mail made it for me. but??? Just my guess...

thanks... bob

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 5, 2015 8:43 AM in response to Robert Paris

Archive folder will only exist when you or your mail settings archive messages. Since there are no setting in apple mail to auto archive messages, it must be done by your provider.

Who is your email provider?

Reply

Answer 6

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 8:44 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I have both Comcast.net and Gmail.com email accounts

bob

Reply

Answer 7

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 8:51 AM in response to Robert Paris

And the Archive Folder is not a normal "deleteable" mailbox like all the other mailboxes I've created that are down further under My Filed Mail. Assuming I can attach a picture here, see a picture of the top part of my Mail application showing this Archive Folder under other default Apple Mail folders. bob...

Reply

Answer 8

Feb 5, 2015 8:51 AM in response to Robert Paris

What account are the messages for in the archive folder? is it Comcast or Gmail? or both?

I suspect it is gmail. Log into the gmail webmail site and look at your settings for your account. How does it handle deleted messages? Is it archiving or sending to trash?

Another thing about gmail is showing the All Mail Folder. If I remember correctly, the new behavior for gmail is for the All Mail Folder to show as Archived. If you go the the labels section of the gmail webmail site, uncheck the box to show All Mail Folder. This will remove it from apple Mail.

Reply

Answer 9

Feb 5, 2015 8:53 AM in response to Robert Paris

Yes, that Archive folder is Apple's main mailbox and you can't delete it. Expand the triangle and you will see what accounts are archiving messages. If you have no archived messages, then the mailbox will disappear on it's own.

Reply

Answer 10

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 8:56 AM in response to Robert Paris

You do make an interesting point because I just now scrolled down a ways through this Archive folder and so far every email I've looked at (just grabbing random ones as I scroll down) are ALL gmail addresses. So far I've not seen a single comcast.net email and comcast gets used by me more than gmail, both for sending and receiving email.

So your point about this might be being driven by "the provider", in this case gmail, might be pertinent. I will go out to one of my accounts at gmail.com and see if I have some preference set there that is causing this behavior.

thanks... bob

Reply

Answer 11

Feb 5, 2015 9:06 AM in response to Robert Paris

Only 2 things to look at.

1: How does your account handle deleted messages. I assume it is set to archive messages instead of sending them to the trash because of the fact that they are over 30 days old.

2: All Mail Folder showing in IMAP will be seen as such in the Archive Mailbox. As I said, I uncheck the box in gmail labels so it does not show in apple mail.

Unchecking the box in the example will remove the gmail All Mail Folder from apple mail. It will still exist at the gmail webmail site with it's contents.

Reply

Answer 12

Feb 5, 2015 9:11 AM in response to Robert Paris

If your setting are archiving, you might want to change it.

Reply

Answer 13

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 9:14 AM in response to Robert Paris

Yep, I did what you suggested and expanded the triangle next to the Archive Folder (duh!!!, I really should have thought to do that) and yes, they are all of my gmail accounts and nothing else. And next to each one of 4, it has the email name and then it says

(All Mail)

Wow, I know this is hard to believe but I'm actually a "detail" person but I've sure not been paying attention to these details. At least not until my mail file is getting so bloated with emails I don't need ot be storing in this Archive Folder...

I havne't yet gone out to look at the Gmail Webmail accounts but I will do that next...

thanks for your help. I will report what I find there.

bob

Reply

Answer 14

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

229 points

Feb 5, 2015 9:43 AM in response to Robert Paris

OK, a little more help needed (but I'm almost there). I went to one of my four gmail accounts (almost sure the others will be the same) and yes I do see under

Labels

that the "Show in imap" is checked next to the All Mail label.

And two, when I go to the

Forwarding and POP/IMAP

heading, first I see that I have "Auto Expunge-on" checked and with that checked, the next set of radio buttons beneath that is greyed out. But when I change to "Auto Expunge-off", then that next set come to life. And that next section is the one that says

When a message is marked as deleted blah, blah

that, yes, I have the "Archive the message" button checked.

Are you suggesting that I should do both the unchecking of "Show in imap" next to All Mail

AND

the "move the message to trash" rather than the "Archive the message"???

And after I do whatever of these two I do, might I still need to manually clean out the Archive folder on my mac or might that happen automatically when I make the above discussed changes??

thanks... bob

Reply

Answer 15

Feb 5, 2015 10:03 AM in response to Robert Paris

What you do is up to you on how you want your mail handled.

I suggest:

Hide the All Mail Folder (uncheck the box). This will automatically remove it from Apple Mail. It will still exist at the website. When you have unchecked Show in IMAP for all accounts, then the Archive folder will disappear from Mail, unless you have manually archived messages before.

Understand this: the All Mail Folder is nothing more than a search feature like apple's smart mailboxes. It will show messages not matter what mailbox the message exist is in gmail. It could be in Inbox, Sent, Trash, Archive, etc. I have no use for it and it serves no purpose IMO to show it in Apple Mail.

Unless you want to archive every message you ever receive, then why leave it set to the default archive. You've already said you save messages to local mailboxes and back them up.

My settings are done as is so that I can control everything from Mail and the gmail site will be the same as what's on my computer. I have mapped my gmail trash to Mail's Trash mailbox. Same for Sent messages. So, what I do in the main mailboxes will also control gmail messages the same. So, when I delete a gmail messages from Mail's inbox, it goes to the Trash. When the trash empties per my settings in Mail, so will the gmail messages.

Some people prefer to store messages permanently on the server. That's up to you. You may want to do both, but you still can hide the archived folders in IMAP.

Reply