Do you create bookmarks for websites that you keep on the Favorites Bar at the top of your web browser window? Did you know that Mail has a similar bar for the mailboxes you use most?

When you started using Mail for the first time, you might never have noticed the narrow area under the toolbar that contained Inbox, Drafts, Sent, and Trash. These four mailboxes are there by default, but you can put any mailbox you like on the bar just by dragging it there.

Just the same, you can remove a mailbox from the Favorites Bar simply by dragging it off. Unlike bookmarks, though, this doesn’t delete the mailbox, which still exists in the Mailbox List (sidebar).

[Update: In more recent versions of macOS, the Favorites Bar is hidden by default and you must show it using the command in the View menu.]

Frequent Visits

First, think about the mailboxes that you visit most frequently. I would consider them your favorites and recommend putting them on the bar. Then, even if you keep the Mailbox List hidden, you still have convenient access to your favorites.

That’s right! You can hide the sidebar to maximize your screen real estate by focusing on the Message List and Preview Pane.

On the left side of the Favorites Bar is the Mailboxes toggle to show/hide the Mailbox List. The associated command is in the View menu with keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+M.

Frequent Moves

Second, are there are specific mailboxes into which you frequently move messages? You can put them on the Favorites Bar and easily drag messages to them instead of finding them in the list.

Additionally, if you put a mailbox on the Favorites Bar that is a parent to other mailboxes, it will appear with a menu caret (⌄). Of course you can you click the caret to select among the contained mailboxes. However, you can also drag messages to one of these, have it spring-load open, and drop them into the desired child mailbox.

Set the Search Scope

Third, the Favorites Bar also turns into the Search Scope so you can specify where to search for messages.

When you enter a search query, you’ll see that the Favorites Bar changes. “Search:” appears to the right of the Mailboxes toggle, followed by “All”—your entire email library—and then the mailboxes normally on the bar. You can specify in Mail Preferences > General whether Trash, Junk, and/or Encrypted Messages are included when searching All Mailboxes.

You might find that prior to entering your search query, you can choose a mailbox to search inside. However, identifying favorite mailboxes enables you to choose various mailboxes for the same search, so you don’t have to clear your search before choosing the next mailbox.

For what it’s worth, if you consistently search some of the same mailboxes, it might be more efficient to enter your search first and then choose a favorite mailbox to search in, instead of the other way around.

One thing you cannot do, however, is select multiple favorite mailboxes as a group (at will), as you can do in the Mailbox List. (You could capture them in a Smart Mailbox and favorite it.) When searching with such a group selected, Selected Mailboxes appears as the scope.

I’ve been using Mail consistently for almost 20 years, so I’m chock full of tips, tutorials, and best practices. Whether you’re just getting acquainted or a long time power user like me, feel free to reach out with your questions and curiosities, and to see what tidbits I can offer to make your email experience more efficient.