Mailboxes, On My Mac and iCloud Sections of Mac Mail App

A mailbox is like a folder. You create mailboxes to organize emails. For example, a mailbox named "Work" might contain all your emails that you receive that are related to work.

Mailboxes are created in the Mail app program on your computer. When they are created you give them a name and a location. Mailboxes can be located to a section on your computer: On My Mac section or iCloud section.

You can also create sub mailboxes that can be placed inside other mailboxes. For example, you might have a mailbox named "My Stuff" and inside that mailbox, you might want to create sub mailboxes named "Bills", "Orders", "Miscellaneous."

Mailboxes or folders created and stored in the On My Mac section of the computer's Mail app program are only seen from the computer's Mail app. i.e., You cannot see them on your iPad or iPhone.

Mailboxes or folders that are created for location in the iCloud section are saved on Apple's cloud server. If you have also selected (in Systems Preferences>iCloud) the option to sync mail with iCloud, then the email messages are sent to ALL your devices including your laptop, iPads, iPhones, etc. These messages can also be retrieved using a web browser like Safari, Firefox or Chrome. You type iCloud.com in your browser address box (url) and log into your personal iCloud account with your Apple ID name and password. You will be able to see your email on the web page.

If you move an email message inside a mailbox or the entire mailbox from the On My Mac section of the Mail app program on your computer to the iCloud section, it is "moved" to the iCloud, but is no longer located in the On My Mac section. Remember that in moving a mailbox from one section to another - the message or mailbox is deleted from the place it is moved from and added to the section moved to. In addition, the email message(s) or entire mailbox has to be literally sent to the iCloud again - which can use a considerable amount of bandwidth upload/download if there are a lot of messages and attachments. So this is best done when you are connected to wifi where you are not worried about using a lot of bandwidth or upload/download data transfer.

If you move an email message from iCloud section to the On My Mac section, the move is made to your local computer, but also removed from the iCloud.

There is also a copy option. The method for "moving" and "copying" messages from a mailbox the On My Mac section to a mailbox in the iCloud section can be done by holding down the control key and clicking on the email message(s) to be "moved" or "copied" to another mailbox that you have created in the iCloud section. Copying email message(s) rather than moving allows you to keep the messages in each section.

To move an entire mailbox from one to the other, you merely drag the mailbox from the On My Mac section or iCloud section of the Mail app to the other section.

Those who do not want their email messages stored in the cloud can create mailboxes or save messages only in the On My Mac section; however, they will not be able to find that email on their other devices like iPhones or iPads.

Apple allows a certain amount of storage in the iCloud, and one way to alleviate some of the storage in iCloud is to move the email messages (deleting them from iCloud section at the same time) to On My Mac section of your Mail app program on your computer.

If you store all your emails in the iCloud section of the mail app, you will need to be connected to wifi to retrieve those messages on your iPad or iPhone.

You should be able to see the email messages stored in the iCloud section mailboxes from your laptop even if you are not connected to wifi.
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