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Mail Folders

What is the purpose of "on my Mac" folder in Mail? What kinds of emails or folders should I be storing in it?


MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Sep 11, 2022 10:35 AM

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Posted on Sep 12, 2022 4:42 AM

Most e-mail accounts nowadays are IMAP or Exchange - both of these keep mail on the server by default, and sync what you see in your mac with the contents of the server.

Previously, POP3 was mainly used; this worked by downloading the messages from the server. For a POP account, there was no syncing, and messages were saved under "On My Mac".


For me, it is still a great way to organize my mail. I have hundreds of mailboxes where everything is organized. It includes messages from at least 15 years of work and family. Rather than having my mac syncing all that, and using up the quota on the server, they are all under On My Mac, backed up with Time Machine. I don't need those messages on my other devices. "Live" mail is kept in the respective accounts (iCloud, gmail or my work server), and accessible also on my iPhone and iPad.

Horses for courses...

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 12, 2022 4:42 AM in response to cherylannrobin

Most e-mail accounts nowadays are IMAP or Exchange - both of these keep mail on the server by default, and sync what you see in your mac with the contents of the server.

Previously, POP3 was mainly used; this worked by downloading the messages from the server. For a POP account, there was no syncing, and messages were saved under "On My Mac".


For me, it is still a great way to organize my mail. I have hundreds of mailboxes where everything is organized. It includes messages from at least 15 years of work and family. Rather than having my mac syncing all that, and using up the quota on the server, they are all under On My Mac, backed up with Time Machine. I don't need those messages on my other devices. "Live" mail is kept in the respective accounts (iCloud, gmail or my work server), and accessible also on my iPhone and iPad.

Horses for courses...

Sep 12, 2022 3:24 AM in response to Barney-15E

I have to admit I don’t know the difference between it being stored on my Mac versus being stored on the server. For example I have five email accounts coming into my Mail application. So would that look like anything that I saved under that heading on my Mac wouldn’t go away if I deleted one of my other accounts is that kind of the purpose of that particular file?

Sep 12, 2022 8:56 AM in response to cherylannrobin

Thank you, I think I understand better what it is for. It seems several years ago when I removed some accounts from my Mac Mail, I lost those emails that I had stored under maybe other accounts. I guess I can see why that is so if the server takes them away. So if I create folders in On My Mac and organize important things there, they will stay. They stay in the original email folder as long as I let it, too, but if I deleted say, gmail, then I would still have the things that I had saved from gmail on the On My Mac file.


So I probably would not want to ask or try to find out how to move a whole email account into that folder. It would take up a lot of space. I would just move everything by hand or by rules, right?


Thank you for your answers!

Just when I think I understand apple, I find that thing that bewilders me.

Mail Folders

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