How to Quickly Move Mail to Your Favorite Folders in Mac OS X Mail

The Mail app in macOS and OS X contains a sidebar that lists all the default mailboxes and folders along with all the additional mailboxes and folders you set up for use with your Mail app on your Mac. In addition to the sidebar, Mail also has a customizable Mail Favorites Bar that gives you fast access to your most-used mailboxes and folders.

The Favorites Bar in the Mail application runs the width of the Mail application near the top of the screen. To enable it:

• Choose View > Show Favorites Bar in the Mail menu. 

By default, the first icon on the Favorites Bar is Mailboxes. Click Mailboxes to toggle the Mail sidebar open and closed.

Open the Favorites Bar if it is closed and populate it with your most frequently used mailboxes or folders:

1. Open the Mail sidebar if it is closed by clicking Mailboxes on the Favorites Bar.
2. Click on one of your most-used mailboxes or mail folders in the sidebar to highlight it.
3. Drag the selection to the Favorites Bar and drop it. An alias for the selection is placed on the Favorites Bar.
4. To add several folders or mailboxes to the Favorites Bar at the same time, click one folder in the sidebar, then press the Command key and click on additional folders or mailboxes. Drag them all to the Favorites Bar and drop them.

Drag and drop messages directly to the folders in the Favorites Bar.

With the Favorites Bar open, you can quickly go to any of your favorite or most frequently used mailboxes or folders just by clicking on its name. If the folder contains subfolders, click on the arrow next to the folder name in the Favorites Bar to select one of the subfolders from a drop-down menu.