Mail & Yahoo: how can I get "Sent" folder to synch, like the "Inbox"?

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Level 1

8 points

Mail & Yahoo: how can I get "Sent" folder to synch, like the "Inbox"?

Happy to be back in Mac, after 15yrs of corporate MS boredom. And TIA for your help with my little 'set-up' problem.

I'd like that my "Sent" mailbox (in Mail.app) mimic the functionality of my "Inbox" mailbox, as relates to my Yahoo!Plus email account. What do I mean? My Inbox associated with my Yahoo account, i.e. in the Mail sidebar under the higher-level Inbox mailbox, contains every email that was in my Inbox on the Yahoo server (and still is, since I chose not to "Remove a copy from the server after retrieving a message, in Mail>Prefs>Accts>Advanced pane).

But the "Sent" mailbox associated with my Yahoo account only contains the messages I send from the Mail application (clearly only when I choose to use the Yahoo account). Also, none of these messages appear in the Sent folder on the Yahoo server, i.e. when I go to the Yahoo site via a web browser, which I'll do when not carrying the Mac with me.

Otherwise, setting up Mail to work with Yahoo was a breeze. N.B. I pay the $20/yr fee for the Mail Plus account/service, so didn't get stuck with the "pay to play" issue that many others have when trying to set up their free Yahoo acct w/Mail.

I recall having this "Sent" folder functionality when I was using Outlook a couple of years ago, hence the answer to 'why would this guy have been paying $20 a year...?'. And I don't/won't go there on my Mac!

Thanks, again, for any help.

MBP 15" Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Nov 22, 2006 9:04 AM

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Answer 1

inbologna Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 3, 2006 7:22 AM in response to inbologna

Necessity being the Mother of invention, I built a crude work-around and fixed half of the problem. I'd still be interested to hear if any of you have 'solved' the other half.

First half fix: On the mail.yahoo.com site, go to the Sent folders and select all of the messages there. Then, in the header, click on the "Move..." button and then select the "Inbox" as the destination. (N.B. This can not be undone; You can move messages from the Inbox to other folders, but not to your Sent folder. Go figure.) The next time you synch (or "Get Mail") from the Mac's Mail app, these "sent" messages will appear in your Inbox. Sort the Inbox by sender and move the messages sent by you to your "Sent" mailbox folder.

Now you've got a complete history of emails, both sent and received, on your Mac.

Second problem not fixed: Messages sent from the Mail app do not appear in the "Sent" folder on mail.yahoo website. So while your Inbox is synchronized between your Mac and your yahoo! account, your Sent items are not.

I was hoping that synching my Mac Mail with .Mac would allow me to see my sent messages remotely, from any internet browser. But at first blush, that dog don't hunt.

Any advice - short of a wholesale move to my @mac.com email - would be appreciated greatly. Even if the advice is "give up the ghost; can't be done; give up the yahoo email"!

Cheers.
-David

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Answer 2

WG

Level 3

775 points

Dec 3, 2006 8:15 AM in response to inbologna

What you need is an IMAP mail account where all messages stay on the server and can therefore be accessed with any computer that accesses the account. Yahoo is POP3.

So, IMO, the easiest way to have local copies of your Inbox and Sent is to BCC yourself on every message you send.

Then create a rule that says "if from is me@yahoo.com and any recipient is me@yahoo.com move message to Sent".

You will end up with copies of the BCC in your Yahoo Inbox which you could delete from time to time after downloading to your Mac. (Using the same rule on Yahoo would move the messages before you could receive them on your Mac)

- Wayne

PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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Answer 3

inbologna Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 3, 2006 5:11 PM in response to WG

Thanks, Wayne.

I've tried/researched your suggested work-around. But I'm afraid we're not home yet. Two problems:

(1) Mail's "any recipient" rule does not pick up on the names in the BCC field. Nor would any other rule for that matter, as I deduced after reading this related discussion thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3367954?

(2) Less importantly, Yahoo's rules don't let you move messages to the Sent folder.

If the BCC "any recipient" Mail rule work-around would have worked, I'd have only been faced with how to automate the filling in of the bcc field. I guess I'll save that for another day.

Any other thoughts, Wayne?
- David

MBP 15" Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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