[TriLUG] Synching Mail folders in Mac OS X

David R.Matusiak dave at matusiak.org
Wed Sep 17 14:33:11 EDT 2003


First of all, sorry for any cross-posting, but this issue is driving me 
batty and I'd like to ping as many Mac Users as possible to see if 
anyone has come across such a thing or found a solution.

Okay, so whats the problem?

Situation:  I have a PowerBook at work and a PowerMac at home (both 
running OS X 10.2.6) and I would like to have my mail folders sync up 
between the two machines.  Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well, for accounts that I access via IMAP, all the folders associated 
with that account are naturally synched up because of the mail protocol 
itself.  (i.e. the folders and the messages within them are the same 
because my mail client [Mail.app on both machines] "sees" the folders 
on the server that holds the mail messages).

However, for POP mail accounts, Sent message folders, as well as all 
"local" mail folders ("On My Mac") my messages are rarely in sync and 
require a ridiculous amount of time and effort to manually sync them.  
I have even considered the tip from _Mac OS X Hacks_ that tells you to 
create a CVS repository on the PowerMac and then use CVS to synchronize 
files between the two machines, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 
this works for "conventional files" (i.e. NOT Macs special mail 
folders) like HTML pages, JPG images, and PERL code samples.  [Sorry I 
don't have the book with me right now, so I cannot be more specific.]

Needless to say, I would love to have my Sent messages folders and my 
On My Mac mail folders look the same across the two machines.  This 
way, I won't always have to be deleting certain messages twice or 
wishing I was at work at 11:00 p.m. just so I can have access to a 
message I sent that day.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated!
dave m.




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