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VelcroFace

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 9, 2018
3
0
Santa Monica
Each of my four e-mail accounts has its own subfolder under Sent, Junk, Trash, Archive, and Drafts (now labeled All Sent, All Junk, All Trash, All Archive, and All Drafts in Big Sur). Prior to upgrading, each account would then list any additional folders under that account’s heading below. (You could choose to hide those folders.) Now those five essential folders are duplicated under each account heading.

If I want to view the sent items related to a particular account, for example, I can just click on the Sent subfolder for that account under the All Sent folder. Why should the Sent folder be listed again under the account? Under Big Sur, my Mail application displays 20 redundant folders! There is so much redundancy in Mail that I have to scroll down the list of accounts just to see all the folders. Is there a way to make Mail display as it did in previous versions of the OS?
 
ah,
I just had this problem, yesterday when setting up my new MacBook Air.
the problem is easy to fix, but not at all obvious.

open up Mail Preferences, and look on the Accounts tab.
highlight the mail account youre seeing the issue with, and look at the mailbox Prefix:
preferences.png



In my case it is INBOX
Now open Accounts (in the Mail menu directly below the Preferences... menu)
select the same mail account, and click the Advanced button
Put this mailbox Prefix into the Path Prefix box:
accounts.png


I cant remember if I needed to restart Mail,
but that should now remove extra Sent/Trash/Draft/Junk folders from your Favorites,
but keep them listed down below under their respective account entries.
 
What? Remove each account's default folders from Favorites? No way! That's where I want those folders to reside. I don't want to go searching under each account's heading for their Inbox or Sent messages. I want them all aggregated together at the top.

Unlike previous versions of macOS, Mail in Big Sur duplicates all those folders under each account. That's what bugs me about Mail on my iPad, but it seems Big Sur wants to make your iMac behave just like your iPad. When I'm filing a message, for example, I don't want to see an Inbox or a Sent folder under the account; I just want to see the custom folders I have created, such as Family or Shopping.
 
What? Remove each account's default folders from Favorites? No way! That's where I want those folders to reside. I don't want to go searching under each account's heading for their Inbox or Sent messages. I want them all aggregated together at the top.
This method keeps all inboxes listed under one global All Inboxes folder, with the option to expand and show all individual inboxes. You can then easily add global sent/trash/junk/archive folders to your favorites by clicking the plus button next to the Favorites heading.

👍

mail.png
 
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