IMAP sent folder specification.

Below is an email from my web hosting support which pretty much tells me I should not be using mail with their service, as it is too limited. Its hard to believe with the release of a new OS and improvements in mail, that apple have not produced a program that has limited featuers compared to other software available.
The basic problem is that all folders on my server are subfolders of the inbox ie: inbox/sent and mail does not let you specify a folder for your sent mail. The result is that with the save mail on server setting my sent emails are not being saved.
Any suggestions?
From web hosting support:
Our developers have investigated this and the mail server seems to be working fine.
Our mail system stores all folders as subfolders of INBOX.
From the look of it, Apple mail doesn't give you the ability to specify the name of the folder that you want to store sent messages in, and defaults to a folder at the same level as INBOX. So in short, the server either has to do it Apple's way or not at all.
A decent mail client like thunderbird (at least on PC and Linux) will allow you to specify the IMAP folder to store sent messages in. Looks like it's Apple Mail just being limiting, so unfortunately there's nothing we can really do to help I'm afraid.

There does seem to be a great deal of validity to the suggestion that Mail treats IMAP servers differently, as opposed to say Thunderbird.
The relevant technical info pertains to http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2342.txt
Specifically: It would appear that some IMAP servers (e.g. Dovecot) implement the namespace as inbox.Sent instead of inbox/Sent and Mail is hard coded to assume / NOT . as a separator.
I confirmed that I can telnet to the server in question and browse the folders manually when I enter them with periods as separators, and likewise that another client (Thunderbird for OS X) can too.
If none of the above methods worked, I'd try to contact the server administrator (at my ISP) to correct things on their end, or someone who can take a bug report for Dovecot.
But that isn't my issue, and from the sound of it may not be the other poster's issue either.
Back in the day there used to be an officially sanctioned way to submit bugs for NeXT ([email protected] or some such).
I have no idea if this is supposed to be addressed in other versions (Leopard for example), but from where I stand it looks like Apple Mail won't play nice with Dovecot, while both other methods work.

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I need to extract email addresses from my "Sent" folder, how can I do this?

I have found a way to export addresses using the "export" option inside the address book-however, I need to extract the addresses from my Sent folder specifically. Is there a way to copy and paste into an Excel file? Or is there a way to do this through Thunderbird?

Every contact you've sent a message to is automatically added to the Collected Addresses address book. One approach would be to create a new address book, then copy the desired contacts from Collected Addresses to that book by drag and drop, while holding the Ctrl key. Then, export the new address book to a csv (comma separated) file and open it in Excel.
It's also possible to scan a folder for contacts and have them added to an address book:
https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/adding_email_address_from_folder_to_address_book#reply_10378723

Sent messages do not appear in sent folder - IMAP server

In my mac mail program, I have a .mac account and a gmail account, both of which work fine on all accounts. I also use another email account which is on an IMAP server. If I send an email from the webmail site, the sent message appears in my sent folder both at the webmail site AND in the folder on my mac email client. If I send an email using the mac email client, the message arrives to the destination, but no sent copy appears either in the sent folder on the mac client or at the webmail site. Please help!!
powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)
powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi David,
Where in the Sidebar to the Mail window, does the
Sent folder appear, if one does, for the .mac
account?
Ernie
Ernie,
The sent folder (little airplane icon) for the .mac folder automatically appeared under my email accounts (in fact, both sent accounts - for my gmail and .mac - appeared as subfolders of the sent folder) when I set those accounts up. Those both work fine, though. It's the IMAP account that isn't working.

Mail and Gmail IMAP: duplicates in sent folder

Hi there,
I recently set up my Gmail account for IMAP and configured Mail.app accordingly. I have several mail accounts which all get directed over my Gmail account. It all works fine, but whenever I send a mail from Mail.app from one of my mail accounts, it appears twice in my sent folder in Mail.app (it's not sent twice, I checked that, and it appears normally in the sent folder of the web interface).
It's seriously clucttering my sent folder, does anybody have an idea how to fix this? Maybe a problem with labels?
Help greatly appreciated,
J

Anyone? No idea?

How to make a copy of the IMAP Sent messages when the Sent folder file can not be found?

My Thunderbird works fine. I can also see messages sent in the Sent folder but I wonder are the sent messages only saved in the IMAP server. For the backup purposes I would like to copy the file of the Sent folder but I can not find a local file for it.
In /home/me/.thunderbird/44g5fxvp.default/ImapMail/mail.[mymail].fi I do have files
Archives-1.sbd
Archives.msf
Deleted Messages
Deleted Messages.msf
Drafts.msf
INBOX
INBOX.msf
inbox_old
inbox_old.msf
msgFilterRules.dat
Sent.msf
Templates.msf
Trash.msf
Trash.sbd
I.e.the Sent.msf esists but there is not file named Sent. Am I looking from a wrong place? Are my Thunderbird settings or preferences wrong? Is there something obvious I have missed?
What is the most convenient way to make a local copy of the Sent folder messages if Thunderbird does not make a local copy of it?
Information about my system:
Application Basics
Name Thunderbird
Version 31.0
User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.0
Application Build ID 20140721092545
Enabled Plugins about:plugins
Build Configuration about:buildconfig
Memory Use about:memory
Mail and News Accounts
account3 (imap) mail.[mymail].fi:993 SSL/TLS Normal password smtpa.[mymail].fi:465 SSL/TLS Normal password true

re: the Sent.msf esists but there is not file named Sent
That is because they are not stored on your computer they are stored on the server. The Sent.msf file is just an indexing file and does not store emails.
re INBOX, INBOX.msf, inbox_old, inbox_old.msf
These subscribed folders have been synchronised to get a local copy onto your computer in your Thunderbird profile folder.
You need to do the same with the 'Sent folder.
* https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization#w_configuring-synchronization-and-disk-space-usage
then go into 'offline' mode to stop further synchronising.
Then you can right click on selected emails and save as .eml files in a folder external to Thunderbird.
You can also copy or move emails into a suitable folder in Local Folders. These folders keep emails on your computer, they are not modified by the server, they do not synchronise with any IMAP mail account.

Imap mail sent from my iphone does not show up in the sent folder on my desktop

imap mail sent from my iphone or ipad does not show up in the sent folder on my desktop

Hi Bob,
I'm using Mac Mail 4.5
I have set up my mail preferences to include a "From"
Web mail includes the appropriate "from" header information.
Interestingly, when I send emails from this account on other machines it's ok.
(ipad2,iPhone 3s,powermac)
It just seems to be the MacBook Pro that is presenting this error.
As an aside, my ISP host recently upgraded from Pop to Imap.
Simon

Apple mail not syncing Sent folder with gmail imap

I'm running Apple Mail 5.0 with Gmail imap. The Inbox folder syncs perfectly. But when I click 'Sent' in Mail the folder is empty. How to keep the 'Sent' folder in sync with the Sent mail in my Gmail account?
Operating system: OSX 10.7
Program : Apple Mail 5.0
Thanks for your help!

This is the iPhoto forum - give the mail forum a shot
LN

Items from Gmail Sent folder not imported to Apple Mail during IMAP setup

Hi,
I just set up IMAP for my Gmail account. Now, although my Inbox folder got copied over to Apple Mail, the Sent folder did not.
Anyone know how I can copy this over too? Its just that I have lots of flagged items that I occasionally reference from the Sent folder.
Thanks.

I'm presuming you have webmail access? In the webmail environment, can you move those messages into another folder or into the inbox itself, then connect in the Mac Mail.app environment, the mailboxes/folders will synchronize, then drag-and-drop them into the Sent folder? And make sure that in Mail's Prefs, you have the "Store Sent Mail on server" checkbox checked?

Is there any way to have Mail automatically use our default "Sent" folder?

We are a small college, with a fair number of users who use Macs and iOS devices, and we run an IMAP mail server. By default, our accounts are configured with Sent, Trash, Drafts, and Junk folders. Apple's Mail.app insists on "Sent Messages" and "Deleted Messages" rather than "Sent" and "Trash".
We instruct our users to use the menu command Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > commands to select our server's folders on their desktops, and on iOS to use the Settings > Mail > Account > Advanced, but this is tedious and annoying. Most users get it about half right, so that some devices use our default "Sent", and some use "Sent Messages". (This happens with Trash as well, but most users are not concerned if their Trash differs device to device.)
Is there any server setting that can hint to Mail.app that it should use "Sent" rather than "Sent Messages"?
Apple has a support document about this issue, "Mountain Lion Mail: If messages aren't stored where expected on the server" ( http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11810 ).
However, that doc (and the similar one for Snow Leopard) merely says, "When Mail stores messages on the server, it looks for specific mailboxes, by name, in which to put the messages. If Mail doesn’t find those mailboxes on the server, it tries to create them on the server or, failing that, on your Mac."
The document does not specify what the "specific mailboxes" are, and certainly does not suggest that there is any way to have it cooperate better with our server, but perhaps there is a way?
(If I was trying to be a good IMAP client, I might look for any of "Sent", "Sent Messages", or "Sent Items", and use what I found before going to the next step of creating my own folder. Hard to imagine that any IMAP account would be initially configured without some "Sent" folder, so why not try to discover what the user has before pig-headly making your own.)

Unfortunately, I have not found a consise way to explain this to the general user, just a huge wall of text to work around something that Apple got wrong the first time they created an IMAP client, and has stubbornly persited with. Here's our documentation for this silly problem:
Special Folders on IMAP
The basic idea is that all IMAP mail programs keep all your mail on our server, so that, e.g. when you read or reply to a message, all of your devices can then show that message as read and replied to.
By convention, each IMAP program treats a few folders on the server as "Special", such as a "Trash" folder, that deleted messages get moved to, and a "Sent" folder, where each message you send gets copied. When they all pick the same special folders, all of your devices will show the same view of your mail. However, if different devices use different server folders for their "special" Sent folder, then the mail from these two devices will wind up in two different places, and be harder to find.
Unfortunately, Apple's Mail programs are particularly obscure and obtuse in the way they treat these folders: They show their special Sent and Trash folders on screen with the obvious names "Sent" and "Trash", but secretly, under the covers, they insist on using folders named, "Sent Messages" and "Deleted Messages" instead. Even if the server already has perfectly usable "Sent" and "Trash" folders, Apple clients will ignore them and create their own special case "special" folders.
If you only ever use Apple devices to look at your IMAP mail, you might never even notice their deception. But, if you sometimes use another mail client, such as webmail, you will encounter the confusing truth: When we created your account for the very first time, we add a "Sent" folder (actually named "Sent") and a Trash folder, named "Trash", and this is what everything except Apple's mail will use by default, because those folders are already their the first time the client connects to your account. However, even though Apple shows your special sent folder at the top of the list, with a paper-airplane icon, and labels it "Sent", in fact they ignore the existing "Sent" folder and make and use their own "Sent Messages."
SO, if you send some mail from webmail, it will be in your actual "Sent" folder, whereas if you send it from an Apple mail program, it will be put into your "Sent Messages" folder. If you look into either "Sent" special folder, you'll only find part of your previously sent mail.
Similarly for Trash, though most users find it more problematic to have two different Sent collections than to have multiple trash buckets.
To unify things, you can either set your non-Apple mail programs to use "Sent Messages" and "Deleted Items"; OR, you can set all of your Apple devices to use "Sent" and "Trash". Doesn't really matter which way you go, though if a majority of your devices are doing it a particular way, you should change the non-matching devices to agree with the majority.
(All clear so far? Why did Apple make this so hard? It would have been utterly simple for them to check for an existing "Sent" folder, and to use one if there is one, rather than to always stubbornly create and use a new "Sent Messages" folder. Then, they add to the problem by pretending that their new "Sent Messages" folder is really just named "Sent". Stupidity all the way down.)
Anyways, to find out what the majority of your devices are doing, check them each to see which of the "sent" folders shows up in the "normal" list of folders rather than in the "special" location, that is, what folder name is in the list at the bottom of the folder area, rather than up at the special "Sent" icon, (because the special one will always be labeled "Sent", not matter what the actual folder name is).
For example, say that on all-but-one of your mail setups, you see a "Sent Messages" folder down in the normal list, and on the other device, you see "Sent" down in the normal list.
In that case, you'd want to set the "different" device to make the folder named "Sent" be the special one, instead of the "Sent Messages" that it was currently using.
Conversely, if all but one showed "Sent" down in the regular folder area, and only one showed "Sent Messages", then you'd want to make "Sent Messages" the special folder on the odd device.
Once you have decided, see the specific sections below for the procedure to set the "special" folders for Apple's Mail.app on a Mac, Apple's Mail on an iPhone/Pad/Pod, or for RoundCube webmail, or for Thunderbird.
Once you have every device using the same sent folder, then you can move any messages from the "extra" version of the folder into your special folder, and then you can delete the extra folder. (If you delete this extra folder and it later re-appears, then it means one of your mail programs is still using it as its "special" folder, and recreating it.)
Similarly for Trash, though probably you could delete the extra trash folder without moving the files, because they are trash.
Here are the details for changing the Special Mail Folders on the systems we use:
A) iPhone, iPad, iPod:
As a first step, use Settings > Mail to set your device to read your email account, then open the Mail program so that it will read the list of all of your folders from the mail server. After that, go back to Settings > Mail to make sure it is using the desired special mailboxes on the server.
Select your IMAP account in the settings tool, and then press the button for "Advanced" settings, and find the list of special mailboxes, e.g. Sent, Trash, Drafts. For each, scroll through the list of folders on the server to choose the folder you wish to use for that function.
Note: iPhones/Pads/Pods also can be set to keep sent mail locally on the device. This is a spectacularly stupid choice for normal IMAP, as none of your other devices will be able to see the messages you send from your phone.
B) Mail.app on Mac desktops and laptops:
Set up mail so that it reads your messages and folders from the mail server.
Select the "Sent" folder that you wish to use in the list of folders at the lower left of the mail window. (On newer Macs, the folders may be hidden by default. Use the "View > Show Folder List" menu command to display them if necessary.)
Use the menu command "Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent" to specify that the selected mail box is the special folder for sent mail, and similarly for your Trash, Junk, or Drafts folders.
C) RoundCube Webmail (with the standard skin):
Login to your webmail site , and select the "Settings" icon in the upper right of the window, which has a "Gear" icon. This will display a "Settings" panel with buttons for "Preferences", "Folders", and "Identities" settings. When you first open the Settings panel, the "Section" panel shows a row of buttons for different Preferences.
Click "Special Folders" in the "Section" list to open a list of "Drafts", "Sent", "Junk", and "Trash". Each special folder is followed by a menu of all your server folders. Select the server folder to use for each special folder.
D): Thunderbird:
After you have set up your connection to your IMAP account, click "Get Mail" to fetch your existing mail and list of folders on the server.
Next, select the menu command "Options > Account Settings…" (Note that on current versions of Thunderbird, the default menu drops down from an icon of three horizontal bars, in the upper right corner of the mail window. You can use the Options command in this menu to display a menu bar at the top of the Thunderbird window if you wish. With the full menu, the menu command to access the special folders settings is "Tools > Account Settings…"
Select "Copies and Folders" in the list at the left of the Account Settings window. This panel has a section for Sent mail, Archives, Drafts, and Templates. Select "Junk Settings" in the list at left to specify the location of the Junk special folder.
For each special folder, the default choice is the the folder on the server with the "typical" name, e.g. "Sent" for sent, and "Trash" for trash. To use a different name, select the "Other:" option for the folder, and then choose the desired folder from the list of folders on the server.
Oof! That's a lot of explaining for a issue that Apple should have gotten right in the first place, or at least should have fixed in their next several tries. It would not break any existing functionality if they merely used whatever folder the server had created, and only made their own if there was none.

Icloud sent messages on device not saved in sent folder

My icloud email is set up as an IMAP account on my Android phone and Windows computer (using EmClient). Sent messages are not being saved to the sent folder. I tried a message online in icloud and on my ipdad mini and there was no problem there with saving my sent message in the sent folder. How can I fix this?

This is a long shot, but Apple is going to start requiring you to set up app-specific passwords in order to allow third-party apps to access data from your iCloud account. This is outlined in this document: Using app-specific passwords. This isn't supposed to be implemented until October, but maybe changes are already taking place behind the scenes in the way third-party apps sync with iCloud that is causing them to "misbehave".
Ask EmClient support if they are hearing from there customers that they can no longer sync with iCloud, and if is, if it is because of this new policy. If so, you may need to just put up with it until Oct. 1st. when you can generate a password for these apps.

Wrong Dates in Sent Folder

After doing a clean install of 10.5 and importing all of my mail messages from my .mac account, I noticed that many of the messages in my sent folder had the wrong date. Apparently they were marked with the date on which I first synchronized my 10.5 Mail with my .mac account. I've since tried to rebuild that folder, and when I do that, those problematic messages show up as sent "Today" at the time I rebuilt, even though many of them are nearly a year old. Any suggestions as to what might be causing this? I've read several threads regarding problems with the sent folder, but none with this specific date problem.
Thanks.
One more thing...
All sent message show up with the correct date when I access the sent folder online through .mac.
Message was edited by: James Casey1

I tried several experiments and noticed that if you move the messages in "sent messages" with wrong dates to another folder (for example to the "inbox") then they get back to their correct date.
Apparently rebuilding mail boxes at this point doesn't fix anything, as if you move the messages into "sent messages" again then the date gets wrong again.
Funny enough, when the message is back into "sent messages" and appears there with the wrong date, if you make a text search FROM THE INBOX on all folders in the search results these messages will appear as located in "sent messages" with THE RIGHT DATE!!! Doing the same search when you are in "sent messages" will show the message with the wrong date!!!
So I am now sure there is BIG BUG in Mail about this.
So unless Apple fix this, I guess the only way is to put all the messages from your "sent messages" with wrong dates in a folder where they appear with the correct date, save or export your "sent messages" folder messages, delete entirely your "sent messages" folder, and reload all you "sent messages" again.
However I have no safe procedure for this and it won't prevent the bug to reoccur later on...

How can I create a filter that automatically copies sent items to other folder than "sent" folder?

I tried to create filter which automatically copies sent to different recipients messages to other folder than "sent". I tried many times with different setting but it doesn't work. With inbox messages it works fine.
Thank you

If you want to 'reply' to an email, but you want the sent reply to auto appear in the same folder of the message you are replying to.
Tools > Account Settings > Copies & folders for the mail account
There is a checkbox to select: 'Place replies on the folder of the message being replied to'
then click on OK to save changes.
If you want all sent emails not just replies to got to different fodlers based on who you sent the email to, then you would need to create a filter which when manually run moves selected emails to specific folders.
So let the sent emails get auto stored in Sent folder.
Tools > Message Filter
click on New
give filter suitable name
Apply filter when: manually run
select 'match all of the following'
To is email address
Perform these actions
Move message to and select the folder.
Do not enable.
When you need to run this filter,
open Message filter.
enable only the filters you require
Run selected filters on: Sent folder on the mail account
click on 'run now'
Best used when you have several sent emails which you need moving.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but works if organising loads of sent emails.

I have an iMac running Yosemite 10.10.1 & Outlook 2011 for Mac. For a while, sent emails went to a sent folder on the iMac so I have a collection of sent emails there. How can I move them to a sent box on my server so I can see them on other devices?

I have an iMac 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 with 16 GB memory and 1.12 TB storage running Yosemite 10.10.1 & Outlook 2011 for Mac. For a while, sent emails went to a sent folder on the iMac so I have a collection of sent emails there. I have attempted to move those sent emails from the iMac to my email server (IMAP), but without success. Is there a way to move them to a sent box on my server so I can see them on other devices? Many thanks for any help you can provide.

Go to: Apple > System Preferences > Universal Access and in the Seeing tab make sure that the Display Enhance contrast: is set to Normal.
Alternatly, try holding the ⌃⌥⌘ (control command alt) keys and then pressing the , (comma) key a few times.

Exchange – Emails in sent folder have no sender information in header

Hey Everybody,
when I send emails with my exchange account in mail.app the copy of the email that is stored in the sent folder is missing the sender information in its header. The "from" column is empty, however, it should say my name there.
Pretty annoying because I use smart folders to organize my mails that depend on the sender information in the header. The only workaround I found so far is using imap in mail.app instead of exchange – but that's not a really satisfying solution.
I only have this problem when using mail.app with exchange. When I use the outlook.com web interface to send emails they are shown correctly in the sent folder in mail.app. Same goes for sending mails via exchange from my iPhone. My MobileMe account also works perfectly in mail.app. For the receiver there is no problem either - my name is correclty displayed as the sender.
Is anybody else having that problem or knows or solution?

Open Apple Contacts and verify your contact as "My Card". Microsoft calls this card "This is me". It's not stored on Exchange but in the local Outlook Address Book. I don't use Exchange so not sure if Apple will let you select your contact on Exchange contacts. You might need to select the local or iCloud contact.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11582
Once you set "My Card", check to see if the issue is fixed.
If you still have issues.....
Let's eliminate issues in your User's folder by testing in a new User.
CREATE A NEW USER
Go to System Preferences --> Create a New User in Accounts. Switch to the New User by logging out/in or use Fast User Switching.
Add your Exchange account to Mail.
Do you still see the issue?
If yes, then the problem is with your base files.
If no, then the problem is in your User's folder.
Option to repair Mail in your User's folder:
Go to your User's Library folder. (if you don't know how to find, see this link.)
Scroll to Mail folder.
Select the V2 > MailData folder.
Delete any files in MailData with envelope in the name. (should be 3)
You can test Mail after deleting envelope files. When you open Mail it will re-index your files.
If you still have problems....
Go to Containers in the User's Library folder.
Delete the com.apple.mail folder.
Go to Preferences in the User's Library folder.
If you find any com.apple.mail.plist files, delete these.
Log out under the Apple in the Menu bar
Log in
Open Mail.

Mail Rules not applying to Sent folder

I have rules set up to color code my e-mails. They work fine in all my mailboxes (Inbox, Trash, personal folders), but do not work properly when applied to my 'Sent' folder (the messages all turn orange). What's the problem?
I have Gmail being forwarded to the Apple Mail program using IMAP settings.

there is no problem. Mail rules work on incoming mail only. if you want Mail rules to apply to sent messages you need a 3rd party plugin. MailActOn
http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html
can do it.

IMAP sent folder specification.

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