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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Get Rid of Gmail ALL folder

Without a doubt organizing and keeping emails can be a can of worms. Gmail accounts store all our incoming mail by archiving it in an ALL folder on our Apple devices and in a similar folder in our Mail app on our Mac computers. In essence, the mail we want to keep and the mail we don't want to keep gets stored in this folder whether we want it or not.

Since I'm trying to organize and minimize my mail on all my devices, I have decided to find a way to get rid of some unnecessary folders stored in the mail apps and programs I use on my devices and my laptop.


There is a way to control what folders are visible in Gmail account(s) that are setup as IMAP accounts for use with Apple Mail.


To turn off the visibility of the Gmail All Mail folder in Apple Mail on your computer, perform the following steps:

Step 1: Log into your Gmail account using your Browser (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, ... whatever you use).

Step 2: Click on the "gear icon" located on the far right-handside of the browser window and click on the Settings option from the pop-down choices.

Step 3: Select the Labels tab.

UNCHECK the box to the right - "Show in IMAP" for the ALL MAIL folder.


Not only will this remove the superfluous folder from your Mail app, it will also keep Mail from downloading every single message twice.

I choose to have my Spam folder unchecked as well.

You can also keep Gmail from archiving all your messages on your mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, etc.) and allow you to delete messages from your the devices.


After setting up your Gmail account on your iPhone, select the Settings icon. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Then select (youraccount@gmail.com) and change the Archive Messages setting to OFF.

Now when you delete Gmail messages on your iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, etc) they will be permanently deleted and not archived.

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Distribution lists or Groups for your Mac Mail App

Often we send out emails to all members of our family. It is convenient to use a distribution list or group that is automatically filled in the To, CC or BCC field in the message window of the Mail app.


Creating a group in your "Contacts" or address book on your Mac can be accomplished by several methods:

Method 1:

Step 1: Click on Contacts icon in your tool bar.

Step 2: Select New Group option under the File menu along the menu bar

Step 3: Select the "untitled group" title and type in the name for your group that will be easy to remember when you get ready to do your mass or group mailings.

Step 4: Next click on All Contacts, scroll through your list and select members for your group. You can use Command key to select multiple names.

Step 5: After you have selected those members you want in your group or distribution list, then click on one of the highlighted areas of one of the members and drag all of them into the left-hand side of the window to drop them into their group.


Method 2:

Step 1: Click on Contacts icon in your tool bar.

Step 2: Click on "All Contacts" on the left-hand side of window to view all the names of contacts you have in your address book. Scroll through your list on the right-hand side and select members for your group. You can use Command key to select multiple names.

Step 3: Go up to the File menu and click on "New Group from Selection" opton. All the members names should appear in the list on the right-hand side. Enter a name for your group.


You can now send emails to all members of a group by simply typing the name of the group in the "To:" "CC" or "BCC" field of an email message. The Mail app will then fill in a list of the email addresses of its members.

When Mail does this, by default the primary email address for each contacts in the group will be used. The primary email address for a contact defaults to the first one listed on that member's contact page. If someone in your group has multiple email addresses, then the first one listed will be used. If you wish to use an alternate email address for this member, you can change this by using the Edit Distribution List under the Edit menu.

If a member has multiple email addresses they will appear and you can select the preferred email to assign to that person in your distribution list. If the member just has one email address, no change options are offered.

If you want to use distribution lists on your iPad or iPhone, then refer to an earlier blog that I posted for an app to assist with that problem (see link below):

http://grannyjoans.blogspot.com/2011/05/sending-group-emails-via-iphone-mail.html
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