Unarchiving mail messages in Mac mail

[R-Tillery]

I am using a 16" MacBookPro 2019 with 2Tb SSID, running macOS Catalina v10.15.6

My Mac mail (v13.4) application comprises several mailboxes including Gmail. Under the Mail preferences the archive setting is invoked and working.

However, all messages go into a single archive mailbox, making a search for specific messages difficult.

How can I "unarchive" these mail messages, create an archive storage solution with folders that mimic my mailbox folders and sub-folders, then re-archive - simplifying searches?

Additionally, how do I change the frequency that mail messages are archived: e.g. after 1 month, 3 months, 6 months etc?

Many thanks for you help.

 

[Alexander_TechBuddy]

Hello!

To "unarchive" mails you simply drag the mails you want to another mailbox.

You can change the frequency that the mails are archived by going up in the menu bar, pressing "mail", then enter "preferences". Then, under accounts, you press "Mailbox Behaviours", and in the bottom drop-down menu you can select at what frequency your mails are archived. However, those mails get sent to that one folder, and do not automatically get sorted out to different mailboxes.


I hope that this solved your issue, and if you were to have any further questions - do not hesitate to ask!
Regards,

Alexander @ TechBuddy Sweden

 

[BrianBaughn]

Unarchiving the emails isn't going to put them back into the folders into which you had them sorted. That will have to be done the old fashioned way.

Tell me if I'm correct…you have mail sorted into various folders/subfolders (such as "Personal") for organization but would like to, on a regular basis, archive the messages into similarly named and organized folders and subfolders (such as "Personal - archive").

 

[R-Tillery]

@Alexander_TechBuddy and @BrianBaughn. Thanks for the feedback, yes Brian you are spot on with your interpretation. Under the mail/Accounts/Mailbox Behaviours I do see a drop down set of folders (structure) under the Archive element that correspondends to my numerous 'in-use' folders.

However, I do not see a frequency option or how to select (or set up) each folder/sub-folder for example under a "Purchased goods" folder sub-folders called, "Amazon", "Google", "Wix", "Apple" where I might wish to store communications / purchases for each of those vendors.

Now, I may wish to access messages in these folders/sub-folders quite frequently, say for 3 months, then as thier importance reduces I would want to archive them after the 3 months. However, I may wish to check something I may have purchased from any of them (folders/messages) at infrequent intervals, rather than now where the archive is one long folder - where messages may have asimilar titlemaking seacrhing a little painful!

Therefore. my quest is to have a mimic of my original folder structure BUT containing the archive messages as described above.

I'm not sure if there are any complementary / better mail applications out their that could do this.

I have no objection to manually (as you say Brian)- though not by preference - to unarchive and then archive but haven't a clue of how to create or set this up initially.

Apologies for not nbeing clearer in my intial question.

 

[BrianBaughn]

macOS Mail won't do what you want automatically and I don't know of a third-party add-on with a feature that would do it. Also, I don't know of any third-party mail apps with the capability.