Support Start > Email > Setting Up An Email Program > Apple Mail > Dragging Folder Bug

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The Apple Mail software program has a couple of bugs that sometimes prevent you from dragging folders to rearrange them. This page explains how to solve those:

• If you can’t rearrange top-level folders
• If you can’t drop onto closed folders

If you can’t rearrange top-level folders

If you’re trying to rearrange top level folders so they appear in a different order, Apple Mail might not let you do that unless you change something in your mail program settings. Try this:

1. Start the Mail program.

If the Mail program isn’t already running, start it now.

2. Open the “Preferences” or “Settings” window.

Using the menu bar at the top of the screen, click Mail, then either Preferences or Settings depending on the version:

The preferences window will appear.

3. Choose the “Advanced IMAP Settings” screen.

Navigate to the “Advanced IMAP Settings” screen. To do this:

• Click Accounts (the blue “@” sign) along the top of the window if necessary.
• Click the address@example.com account in the left “Accounts” column if necessary.
• Click Server Settings.
• Click * Advanced IMAP Settings*.

A new window will appear.

4. Make sure the IMAP Path Prefix is set

If the “IMAP Path Prefix” section is blank, type the word INBOX into it, like this:

(Do not change the “TLS Certificate”, and don’t check “Allow insecure authentication”.)

Then click OK to close the window.

5. Close the settings window.

Click the red close button in the upper-left corner of the Accounts window. Save the changes if it asks whether you want to do so.

Finally, quit and reopen Apple Mail to see if the problem is fixed.

If you can’t drop onto closed folders

A different problem that sometimes occurs is that Apple Mail won't let you move a folder inside another closed folder. After you drag a folder, it may simply “pop back” to its original location, like this:

The bug happens when you drag a folder “on top of” an already-open destination folder icon or name.

There are two ways to work around this problem. The first is to release the dragged folder below the opened destination folder, like this:

It can be a little tricky to release the pointer at the exact right location, though, so there’s a simpler second way: close the destination folder, then drag the source folder on top of the closed destination folder icon or name, like this:

The closed destination folder will automatically open by itself after you drag the new folder onto it.