Draft folder is black, does not save an email draft, and has other folders in it?

Question

Draft folder is black, does not save an email draft, and has other folders in it?

My Mac does not save my drafts of emails for one of my gmail account because the folder seems to be messed up. As you can see in the attached picture, the draft folder icon is black and will not open anything. There are other folders in the Draft folder including one for Important emails. I do not know how they got there or how to remove them and fix my draft folder. I saved a draft thinking it was saved, but I cannot find any of the drafts I thought I saved. I don't know how my draft folder got corrupted but it no longer saves email drafts. I have several gmail accounts and all the others are working fine. Can anyone tell me how to fix this so Mail on my Mac will again save email drafts to the draft folder?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on May 3, 2017 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,076 points

May 4, 2017 3:14 PM in response to Old Timer 8 Ball

You can control some of the mailbox behaviors in the Apple Mail client, as follows:

Run Apple Mail.
From the Apple Mail menu bar, select Mail > Preferences > Accounts
Select your Gmail account, then select the Mailbox Behaviors tab.
Basically, the only thing you can control is defining which of your Gmail folders would be used for the Drafts Mailbox in the Apple Mail client. Verify that you are using the correct Gmail account folder. By default the Apple Mail client will select your Gmail account's Draft folder here.

The other thing to consider is what type of email account did you configure for your Gmail account? Does it use POP or IMAP for retrieving emails?

If configured for POP, all mail in any Gmail folder will be downloaded to your Apple Mail client's equivalent folders. The emails on the Gmail email server will be deleted. For IMAP, the emails will also be downloaded to your Apple Mail client as a copy. The original emails will remain on the Gmail email server.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

158,076 points

May 4, 2017 12:51 PM in response to Old Timer 8 Ball

I would then suggest that you delete your Gmail account from the Apple Mail client, and then, re-add it back in.

Run Apple Mail.
From Mail's menu bar, select Mail > Accounts...
Select, and then, delete the problematic Gmail account.
Close, and then, restart the Mail app.
Add back your Gmail account.

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,076 points

May 3, 2017 12:45 PM in response to Old Timer 8 Ball

The Gmail mail folders that you see in the Apple Mail client are actually a part of your Gmail email account. I suggest that you log into your Gmail account via a web browser and make any changes or corrections to your Gmail folders. Once done, those changes should now appear in the Apple Mail client.

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Answer 4

May 3, 2017 1:26 PM in response to Tesserax

This did not help. Everything, including the draft folder, in the online gmail account works and is same as my other gmail accounts. This did not change or fix things on my Mac. Still the same problem.

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Answer 5

May 4, 2017 12:53 PM in response to Tesserax

It did not fix my issue. I tried deleting then reloading my gmail email account and it took away the weird folders. The draft folder icon now looks good, but, still does not work. I saved a draft email and saw the number 1 appear and immediately disappear in the draft folder, and the draft folder remained empty.

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Answer 6

May 4, 2017 3:19 PM in response to Tesserax

Hi Tesserax,

It's fixed! I use IMAP. I went into my gmail settings and somehow in Labels the drafts setting was "only if unread". So, right after I saved it in my drafts folder, it took it away. I changed the setting to read all. Voila! It's now fixed. Funny thing, it always showed the drafts online in the gmail account, just not while in my Mail on my Mac. Thanks so much for all the help and suggestions.

Alan

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Answer 7

Tesserax

Level 10

158,076 points

May 5, 2017 9:12 AM in response to Old Timer 8 Ball

You're very welcome! I'm glad you got it worked out ...

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