I have a question about the mailboxes I've created in Apple Mail. I create mailboxes to organize messages I want to keep. I've always just had them "On My Mac" instead of putting them in iCloud. I'm curious to hear what others do, as I'm wondering if I'd be better off putting all of these mailboxes in iCloud. I back up my Mac once a week to an external drive and I back up to iCloud-do the mailboxes "On My Mac" back up? Thanks for your help.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Mail Mailboxes On My Mac Versus iCloud
- Thread starter Coachcasa
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I keep all my messages on the email server. Rather than locally. That way I can access everything. No matter which device I use. Even the web interface.
It all depends on your use case, is your Mac the only way you access your email?
If you put content on the mail server you can access it on any device, which is my preference. If I’m out and about I have access to all of those mailboxes on my iPhone if needed.
If you put content on the mail server you can access it on any device, which is my preference. If I’m out and about I have access to all of those mailboxes on my iPhone if needed.
Thanks for your replies. I started with this system of just keeping it on my Mac many years ago before iCloud was a thing and have just kept doing it that way. I am probably going to move all of these folders to iCloud instead, but Is there a downside to doing this?
Not really. Unless you switch to Outlook as your mail client. As Outlook is incredibly slow with IMAP. If you have folders being synced with a lot of email. I haven't experienced any performance issues with (Mac) Mail or Thunderbird. Outlook is just horrible. It's designed for Exchange, IMAP is an afterthought.
The only reason I can think of to not do it. Is if you have so many saved emails. That you'll have to pay for extra storage space online for them. But it is extremely rare for me to come across someone with more than several GB of email.
As some people have difficulty with the concept. When you store your email online. If you move or delete a message on one device. Those changes happen everywhere. The number of times I've gotten panicked calls from people with email disappearing from their computer. Because they were deleting them from their phone is absurd.