Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers

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Tue, Jul 1 2008 at 7:30AM PDT • Contributed by: pramit

For a while I've been annoyed at Mail.app's creation of the Apple Mail To Do folder on my IMAP server (I use Dreamhost). No matter what I did, it just wouldn't stay gone. There's this hint, and there are some thoughts in the comments, but no real fixes.

I returned to my problem today, and found that by going into Mail » Preferences » Composing, I was able to solve the problem. In the 'Create Notes & To Do's in:' drop-down menu, select On My Mac. Close the preferences, then delete the Apple Mail To Do folder on the server.

That's it! No more 'Apple Mail To Do' folder on the server; just locally.

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Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers | 8 comments | Create New Account

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Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: owsla on Tue, Jul 1 2008 at 7:45AM PDT

Thank you so much for this hint! I had completely overlooked that preference.

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: devan on Tue, Jul 1 2008 at 8:45AM PDT

Doesn't work for me. I set the preference, remove the Apple Mail To Do label from GMail, and still it comes back eventually. I've also tried removing the ToDosMailboxName key and value from the Mail plist file (after quitting Mail, of course), but no combination of these steps keeps Mail from recreating the label in GMail—and I don't even use To Dos!

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: Red Phoenix on Tue, Jul 1 2008 at 10:14AM PDT

I've just tried this in Gmail, and it seems to have worked so far. Here are the steps I used:

Followed the steps above.
Quit Mail.app.
Opened Gmail in the browser.
Went to "Settings", then "Labels".
Removed the label there.

The next time I opened Mail.app, the disconnected triangle appeared next to the Gmail To Do, and then it and the Gmail To Do section disappeared. It hasn't reappeared yet.

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: FOOOD on Tue, Jul 1 2008 at 10:52AM PDT

I can't delete the mailbox from within Mail, the option is greyed out.
I quit Mail & deleted the mailbox from ~Library/Mail'myaccount' & it still came back when I restarted Mail.

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: audiophil on Wed, Jul 2 2008 at 12:14AM PDT

there has to be a .plist flag hidden somewhere to disable this. I leave it to a more enterprising soul to find it though. . . .

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: Loona on Fri, Jul 4 2008 at 12:13PM PDT

Works beautifully with my university e-mail. Did as you said, went in and deleted the folder on the server, restarted Mail. It's yet to return.
Thanks for the hint. It would be nice if they had actually put that feature in the account options in the first place.

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: PBenz on Sat, Jul 5 2008 at 6:38AM PDT

I assume you have INBOX specified for your IMAP Path Prefix, correct? If you don't, then Mail will continue to ask you to change it in order to create that to-do folder which is extremely annoying.

Prevent creation of the Mail To Do folder on IMAP servers
Authored by: PopMcGee on Sat, Oct 24 2009 at 1:56PM PDT

Doesn't work. I set that setting, deleted the evil folder, restarted Mail.app and the folder was back.

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