I use Mail to monitor/manage 4 email addresses. After updating to Big Sur my Mailbox List sidebar is so much messier. For example, after “Favorites” is a non-moveable “On My Mac” section that currently has 9 Mailboxes below it: Drafts, Drafts, Sent, Sent, Sent, Junk, Trash, Trash, Trash.” They pertain to the various email addresses. Items in the 3 “Sent” folders here also happily appear in the one “All Sent” Folder that appears in the higher up “Favorites” listing (but there is no “All Drafts,” “All Junk,” “All Trash” folders there. Is there a way, Gary, for me to combine these mailboxes by category? The 10 lines of the sidebar that they take up push my permanent mail folders down and below the initial sidebar, so I am constantly scrolling down to access hidden folders. I have watched your Mail instructions on your new Big Sur course, but I didn’t catch anything that helps me with this, so I thought I’d ask you directly. If the “Next” button below allows, I’ll include a screenshot. Thank you, Ron
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Ron
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How Do I Combine Multiple Default Mailboxes Into One Of Each Category?
Comments: 6 Responses to “How Do I Combine Multiple Default Mailboxes Into One Of Each Category?”
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First, close the ones you don't want to see. For instance, the On My Mac section. Move your cursor over to it and you'll see a little > button to the right of the section name. Click it to close it and you won't see those subfolders.
If you want to see those Drafts folders, but combined, try moving your cursor over the Favorites section title and use the ⊕ button to it and you can add "All Drafts" and other "All" subfolders there.
Thanks, Gary. If I close the "On My Mac" section I also hide the 25 folders I use to file away emails. (They hold saved emails from 2004 to the present.) Fortunately, I realized that I could move those 25 folders up the list above the Big Sur mandated "Drafts, Drafts, Sent, Sent, Sent, Junk, Trash, Trash, Trash" folders, so now they are at the bottom of the list and below the normal Sidebar range. I also was able to add folders named "All Drafts, All Junk" etc. to the Favorites list at t
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top of the Sidebar. Obviously, I should convert these personal & archival folders to pdf.s and remove them from on-my-mac Email and then bite the bullet and let Gmail and iCloud be my Archives from 2021 on. Maybe others could benefit from a lesson on how-to-tag and/or how-to-trust and/or how-to-manage want-to-keep emails that are archived on the server. Thanks again.
Ron: Yes, adding those to Favorites is a good idea. I always shy away from doing email-related tutorials because everything really depends on what email service people have. Someone with iCloud vs other services vs ISP email vs old-fashioned POP, etc. It is like telling people how to use "a web site" when all web sites do things a little differently.
I recently lost my “All Inboxes” which collected my wife’s incoming emails and my own. Now I currently have two separate inboxes. I cannot find instructions on how to create (or recreate) the “All Inboxes”. I am running Big Sur and the email addresses are through my ISP. Can you help me?
Louis: Try this. Look for "Favorites" in the left sidebar. Move your pointer over it. You should see a ⊕ button there. Click that and turn on All Mailboxes.