iCloud mail folders aren't showing in Apple Mail

I had this same problem as well and I'll tell you what fixed it for me.

Assuming that you have iCloud set to sync your Mail (in System Preferences > iCloud) then you should be seeing the iCloud folder in Mail's left pane, but you are not (my problem - see image below). Scroll past the image for my solution.

How I fixed it:

In Mail, go to the pulldown Mailbox > New Mailbox...

Select iCloud as the Location, and give it a random name like below, then click OK.

After several seconds, iCloud appeared in the left pane with Test Folder under it. It's as if it needed a reason to exist and then appeared once it had a folder to show.

After this I was able to drag folders from my On My Mac folder to underneath the iCloud header, and they are now syncing. Give it time though; it's not immediate.

I hope that works for you!

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder

from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.

A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:

Envelope Index

ExternalUpdates.storedata

Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.

Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.

If the import operation stalls or fails with an error message, quit Mail, delete the two new index files (keeping the original ones that you moved to the Desktop), and try again. According to many reports, the second attempt may succeed after the first one has failed.

Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

Ive just had the same problem. I just went into system preferences, iCloud settings, unchecked, sync mail, waited 30 sec, reselected it, it said "syncing mailboxes' now works fine, all mailboxes have appeared as they should!

Please take these steps to delete the Mail "sandbox" folders.

Step 1

Back up all data.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal

from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder named "com.apple.mail" selected. If it does, move the selected folder—not just its contents—to the Desktop. Leave the Finder window open for now.

Restart the computer. Launch Mail and test. If the problem is resolved, you may have to recreate some of your Mail settings. Any custom stationery that you created may be lost. Ask for instructions if you want to preserve that data. You can then delete the folder you moved and close the Finder window.

Caution: If you change any of the contents of the sandbox, but leave the folder itself in place, Mail may crash or not launch at all. Deleting the whole sandbox will cause it to be rebuilt automatically.

Step 2

If Step 1 doesn't solve the problem, repeat with this line:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.MailServiceAgent

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Hi.I've tried it but it didn't work for me. Maybe it failed because I opted to rebuild all of the mail boxes prior to giving your solution a try. I found the files you've mentioned under a V3 and not a V2 folder: V2 only contained a mail list file. Bottom line, I can't "see" any of the iCloud mail folders. They're still running okay on iPhone and iCloud, but nowhere to be found on mail.The mail on Mac boxes still display al the mail stored, but no syncing of any of the iCloud ones Also tried adding a "ghost" folder, but all that does is create a "strange" imap folder on both the iPhone and iCloud mail boxes. Any suggestions? Many thanks.

Thanks very much. I didn't really understand all the other solutions and yours certainly seemed the easiest to try, so I did. It worked beautifully and was so simple to do. So glad I read far enough down to see your solution!

Oh my god, thank you! I didn't even know I had to solve this problem until I went down the rabbit hole looking for ways to sync mail folders between my macbook and my iphone. Awesome, and no scary indexing...

I had the same issue today and do not know what caused it. I used the recommendation below from scottgough123 which was much simpler than other recommendations and it worked perfectly and now all folders are back in the mail program. What I did...

1. Open System Preferences

2. Click on iCloud

3. Remove check mark next to iCloud

4. Wait for a minute

5. Place check mark next to iCloud again to allow for re-sync

6. Go to mail program and validate that your folders are there again

Thanks scottgough123, this absolutely fixed my problem and took about 15 seconds to do.

Thanks again!!!

Thanks so much for this tip, it worked and was fast and simple. I have been fighting this problem for several days. Great to have people like you share these great bits of information. THANK YOU!!!!

Thanks, Scottgough123.

Perfect answer. Got my long-forgotten Mailboxes back!

worked for me and so easy -- thanks so much!

I did that and nothing happens

it didn't work :O(