Two questions about apple mail

Question

hey everyone. i'm getting to learn a little more about apple mail these days; smoothing out Gmail IMAP synching and whatnaught. i've stumbled into the mail directory on my macbook and had some questions.
1. the "mail downloads" folder (home/library/mail downloads). what is the significance of this folder? in the preferences, i have my default downloads saved to the main "downloads" folder. yet there is a random number of files in there; i don't think they constiute the totality of every message i've received that has a file to download, so what is the logic of those files? if i delete them will the downloads not be available from individual mail messages any longer?
2. i see some older IMAP mailboxes for two accounts that i don't even have access to any more. they don't, however, show up on the mail app itself. is there some way to reintegrate these mailboxes (just for archival purposes, and the ability to see their messages) into the mail program?
thanks so much!
quin

Answer 1

Aaron,
The Mail Downloads folder contents are redundant to what is kept with the messages. The most typical ways that content results in that folder are:
1) quickly clicking the Save button on a message, rather than using a click-hold to then have the option to choose a target location of the Save;
2) you open an attachment with another application. There Mail Downloads is only meant to be a temporary storage location. Attachments are kept as originally received with the message itself. Also, in the more recent version of Mail, it is redundantly kept in a folder within the INBOX.mbox folder named Attachments -- this is a behind the scenes behavior. It first appeared only for IMAP mailboxes, but more recently in Mail 4.x is also the case with a POP account. If unedited, then depending how you have your preference set up, attachments may be removed when Mail is quit, etc.;
3) Mail in 10.5.x and 10.6.x seems to require the Mail Downloads folder to be created, rather than use the Downloads folder. The latter is mostly used as the location of items you click to load from a remote server, whether in a Browser or in Mail.
With respect to your old IMAP account folders or mailboxes, where have you found them? I would assume any old IMAP accounts have been deactivated in Mail Preferences/Accounts/Advanced if in the Mail folder, but not showing in the Sidebar to Mail? It would problematic to activate an IMAP account if it can no longer contact the IMAP server. Any xxxx.imapmbox folder can be dragged from the Mail folder (after quitting Mail) to say the Desktop, renamed as xxxx.mbox folder, and then back in Mail imported to be an On My Mac mailbox for archival.
More info, please.
Ernie