Smart Folders, Local Folders, Account Folders; all with their own inbox, sent, draft, trash… etc. What’s the purpose of all of these folders?
I also have a >Local Folders branch (in dimmed out text) located under my email account folder. I’ve tried to delete it several times but it just keeps coming back. How do I get rid of it.
I also have several folders that I have deleted which appear (dimmed out) in my trash folder. I’ve emptied the trash several times but they stay there. How do I get rid of these?
Account folders are where eM Client stores messages and duplicates what is on the server. So if you create a sub-folder of Inbox using your email provider’s web interface, it will also appear here in eM Client. These folders are synced with your server, and any other devices that are connected via IMAP to the same email account. That draft message you began on your phone will appear in the Drafts folder here as well. These are the default folders for your email account.
If you have your account setup as POP3, you will also have a folder tree for that account, but those folders are not synced with a server. New messages will arrive from the server and be placed in the Inbox, but that is all.
Local Folders are a set of folders that exist only in eM Client. Anything you move to those folders will be saved on your computer only. These can be hidden in Menu > Tools > Settings > General > Show Local Folders if you don’t use them. The only folder, whether hidden or not, that is used by the system is the Outbox. eM Client will store all outgoing messages here until they are successfully uploaded to the server, then they will be moved to the Sent folder for your account.
Archive Folder is used for eM Client’s Automatic Archiving, if enabled, which will move messages based on age from the server to a local folder.
Smart Folders are a set of filters and saved searches. If you have three email accounts setup in eM Client, the Smart Folder All Inboxes folder will be a combined display of all those account’s Inboxes. The same with the Unread Smart Folder. It will display all unread messages that exist across all your accounts and folders. You can also create Search Folders, for something like “all messages received from Amazon that have bed for sale in the subject”. You can also hide the Smart Folders in your settings if you don’t use them.
I have seen something like this before where a folder that was deleted in another email client appears in the Trash in eM Client and cannot be removed. Or a folder that was deleted in eM Client appears in Thunderbird and cannot be deleted.
You can try in eM Client to right-click on the containing folder (Trash and Inbox) and choose Properties > Repair. That should fix the problem if it is with the eM Client IMAP cache. If it is on the server, then contact your email provider and ask them to look into it.
Well, yes and no, but it is totally safe. If your account is setup as IMAP, then the messages and folders are stored on the server, and all eM Client does is show you a cached copy of the server. Sometimes that cache can become corrupted, and the repair will fix it by deleting the local message cache, and resyncing it with the server. It does not delete the messages off the server, it just downloads a fresh copy of what is on the server.
If in doubt, make a backup using Menu > File > Backup first, then you can always restore if there is some issue.
Conducting a repair did’t appear to do anything. However after deleting the folders repeatedly they have finally disappeared. This has been one hell of an experience.
I now have all my emails stored under my account and have removed from view Local and Smart folders to clear the clutter. My emails are all on the server; will they also be stored in the store folder on my hard disk?
Glad everything is now moving in the direction you want it. Most do not show Local Folders, and I think the default setting is to hide them anyway. Smart Folders can be very useful, but if you don’t use them, why display them?
Backups are usually stored in your Documents folder. There will be a single zip file for each backup in an eM Client sub-folder. You can check the location in your settings Menu > Tools > Settings > General > Backup.
If your account is setup as IMAP or Exchange then the messages are stored on the server. eM Client will keep a cached local copy on your computer for convenience, but the primary store is the server. That means if you lose your computer, or delete the eM Client database, the messages will not be affected.