Change Mailbox Behaviors preferences in Mail on Mac
Use Mailbox Behaviors preferences in Mail to change where draft, sent, junk, deleted, and archived messages for an email account are stored.
To change these preferences in the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, click Accounts, then click Mailbox Behaviors.
Note: Mail stores messages in the mailbox you specify for each option.
If you select a mailbox on the mail server, the messages are available when you use your email account on another computer. Mail selects the best mailbox for your account; before choosing a different server mailbox, check with your email account provider.
If you select an On My Mac mailbox, the messages are stored on your Mac and are available only there.
The settings shown vary depending on your account type.
Option | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Drafts Mailbox | Choose a mailbox on the mail server or on your Mac to store draft messages. This option is available only for IMAP accounts. | ||||||||||
Sent Mailbox | Choose a mailbox on the mail server or on your Mac to store sent messages. This option is available only for IMAP accounts. | ||||||||||
Junk Mailbox | Choose a mailbox on the mail server or on your Mac to store junk messages. This option is available only for IMAP accounts. Note: Select this option on each Mac where you use your account, to avoid having two Junk mailboxes in the Mail sidebar. | ||||||||||
Erase junk messages | Choose when you want Mail to delete junk messages. To avoid exceeding storage limits set by your email account provider, choose a setting other than Never. | ||||||||||
Trash Mailbox | Choose a mailbox on the mail server or on your Mac to store deleted messages, or choose None (deleted messages are removed and aren’t available in the Trash mailbox). This option is available only for IMAP accounts. | ||||||||||
Erase deleted messages | Choose when you want Mail to erase deleted messages. To avoid exceeding storage limits set by your email account provider, choose a setting other than Never. If you select None for Trash Mailbox, you can have messages permanently deleted automatically. If your email account provider sets up the server to delete older messages, the messages are deleted regardless of how you change this option. | ||||||||||
Archive Mailbox | Choose a mailbox on the mail server to store archived messages. | ||||||||||
If you use an Exchange account, you can choose to store draft, sent, junk, and deleted messages on the server, and when to erase junk and deleted messages.