Mail imap problems: Mail created random folders and saves multiple drafts

Question

Hi there, I have a brand new MacBook Pro, and set up Mail to imap my two primary email accounts (new to discussion forum and forums in general):
I have two imap accounts set up: Gmail and Network Solutions (my work webmail). Gmail is working fine.
Network Solutions imap account:
- Saves numerous copies of drafts of the same email as I type, and when I try to delete them (select them all, delete, or select all and move to trash), I get a message saying the Network Solutions server on port 143 has timed out. So I have a bunch of drafts that I can't clear.
Mail menu on lefthand side of Mail window looks like:
Mailboxes
Inbox icon with dropdown to
Gmail Inbox icon
Net Sol Inbox icon
Drafts icon with dropdown to
Gmail Drafts icon
Net Sol Drafts icon (this is where all those drafts keep saving and can't be deleted from)
Sent icon with dropdown to
Gmail Sent icon (only about a dozen sent emails are shown here)
Net Sol Sent icon (only about ten sent emails are shown here)
Trash icon with dropdown to
Gmail Trash icon (seems to be all my trash)
Net Sol Trash icon (seems to be all my trash)
REMINDERS
ON MY MAC
RSS
GMAIL drop down to
[Gmail] white folder icon that has the following sub folders:
All Mail (appears to have all mail from gmail in here)
Drafts
Sent Mail (appears to have all sent mail here)
Spam
Starred
Trash
NET SOL (drop down triangle)
Draft folder (empty folder)
locker folder (empty, no idea what this is, did not come from Net Sol)
Sent (does not refresh properly, always missing recent msgs)
Sent Items (empty folder)
Trash
The thing is, that in Network Solutions, prior to imapping with Mail, I had these folders:
Inbox
Deleted Messages
Drafts
Sent
Trash
NOW, after setting up imap to Mail, new folders have appeared in Network Solutions:
Folder Name
INBOX
Deleted Messages (Bolded)
Draft
Drafts
INBOX
Sent Messages (Bolded) (all recent sent msgs are in here now)
Sent (Bolded) (all sent msgs from Nov 6 and earlier are in here)
Sent Items
Trash
If I want to reference an email I sent after Nov 6, I have to log onto my Network Solutions webmail and go to that Sent Messages folder, move them to the Sent folder, then log out and update my Mail, at which point, I can see them on Mail.
I have not made a single folder in Mail -- what's there is a result of me setting up the two imap accounts.
Network Solutions has no idea what that "locker" folder is, it is not a Network Solutions-generated folder, does not appear in my Network Solutions webmail folder list, and I did not make it.
Can anyone help me clean this up, explain these mysterious folders, why I can't delete Net Sol drafts, why I can't get my sent messages that are more recent than Nov 6 into Mail, even though I've been primarily using Mail to send and receive mail for both Gmail and Network Solutions?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
-Sunny

Answer 1

Hi. I posted again, and no one has answered either, here is the other post, it's more detailed in scope:
I am having a very strange problem here which started about a week ago, maybe someone can point me in the right direction:
1) I use both gmail and my domain's server email which load into Mail.app. I use gmail because I like their spam filter and I use their SMTP because where I am, my ISP SMTP server isn't very reliable. Gmail solves my outgoing mail problem, but doesn't support showing when mail has been answered and that is a useful feature.
2) My procedure is to open up gmail in my browser, mark and delete the spam (IMAP Account), then close the browser and open mail.app
3) I have a rule in mail.app which moves my gmail to my domain mail Inbox where I organized with folders and subfolders and use many signatures to send different email out to customers. Mail has been very good as you can do quite a lot with it compared to most other email clients for OSX. I do this for three domains, with several email addresses within each domain.
4) In mail.app, I can choose which mailbox to use for sent mail, junk, etc. This way I am sending from my domain, the email response shows and is linked to that mail so I can look for old responses fast and organize things by department. Spotlight or search works fast and perfectly. It's a good solution which I have used for well over a year (whenever gmail released IMAP services), or was, until a week ago.
Problem 1) As of now, when I open the mail account, the domain subfolders which should be below my Inbox are no longer there. If I look lower to the account folder, sometimes the folders show up there, sometimes they do not show up at all, but they are online in my web-based mail with my hosting company. The mails are not lost, but mail.app is not connecting with the host correctly as they appear and disappear randomly.
Problem 2) Every time I open mail.app now, most of my email inbox folders have to download all of the mail and their attachments again, even though I have the boxes in preferences correctly checked. Once the inbox loads all of the mail, then the subfolders disappear. This is very consistent. As long as there is no mail showing in the inbox, then the subfolders are showing correctly. As soon as the inbox is loaded showing mails, then the subfolders either disappear or move.
Problem 3). The mailboxes that my hosting's webmail service creates (like deleted mail, mail to delete, trash, trash delete, whatever, it's a Windows server) keep showing up in Mail. They never did that before. Once I deleted them, I could see them online, but not in mail. All was as it should be. Now they keep coming back every time I reconnect and I often have to reset which mailbox is being used for junk, sent mail, drafts, etc.
Problem 4). This same problem happens on all three of my machines, two being PPC and one Intel, running 10.4.11 and 10.5.5 respectively. The problem started happening on all my machines at the same time. This is also connection from three different ISPs.
Solution? My hosting company says that they have changed nothing in their settings (IMAP uses Port 143 and I do get a time-out error sometimes but not often). They have tried it in Outlook and do not get the same results, they say it's working fine. I have tried to subscribe in Leopard (you can't do this is Tiger, only in Leopard, but Mail.app says I have no subscribed folders, which is not true). The Quota Limits shows the standard Mail.app mailboxes, the Subscription List shows nothing, and no way to change it).
I tried Thunderbird and it connects faster, downloads faster and the folders are OK, but I still get mail folders appearing randomly. Sometimes I get mail folders appearing that I have not ever created with names like "System Mail". Sometimes I get mail boxes which are stored On My Mac which appear on IMAP suddenly. (Also, Thunderbird has poor signature file support, so I would prefer to use Mail, it's a better program overall.)
I have tried rebuilding the mail accounts, have done this, realistically, 25 times. Yesterday I did a complete reinstall of 10.5.5 just because I am at the end of my rope. Now I am about ready to change hosting companies as I am still having the same trouble. I am in the process of archiving all of my mail into Gmail so I can switch hosts if that is the problem. But, I would like to know first if that is actually the problem, since overall I am pretty happy with my hosting company. They are in Arizona and speak my language and they are easy to talk with. However, they do not have a Mac there so they cannot test my situation from their facility.
It's a strange problem in that one, I have used the system fine for well over a year with perfect results. Two, it happens on three different Mac used in three different places (office, home, and another person's home), and three, I have not changed hosting companies, I have been using the same host for two years and they deny changing any settings on their end.
The hosting company has no answer for me, they are not Mac users, and say that it's perfect in Outlook, but it's not actually perfect in Outlook either as mailboxes still appear randomly and sent mail ends up in my inbox randomly even in Outlook. They just don't realize it as they are not watching my mail boxes except when I am on the phone with them.
I am not having trouble with my websites. I do not have this problem with Gmail, only with my domain webmail.
I have to use Windows because of a particular shopping cart system I use, but IMAP systems should be the same on Windows or anything else. Some how, some where, some one has changed some thing. Any idea what and how to solve the problem?
Thanks,
John