Subfolders not showing in apple mail iphone 14 Pro iOS 16.5.1

I created parent folders in my apple mail app. It gets email from my gmail account. I have created a couple of subfolders under a couple of parent folders. When I want to save an email in a sub folder it does not show up. I used to be able to see subfolders under parent folders all the time. It’s a mail set up thing but I’ve gone through settings and there are no changes there to make to allow me to see my subfolders. Can you help me find them? Thanks in advance!

iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Jun 28, 2023 02:21 PM

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Posted on Jun 30, 2023 02:00 PM

Bailer-thanks for your detailed response. I did create parent folders and some subfolders under those. For example: created a parent called FINANCIAL. Under that I created subfolders such as Taxes and another called School Loans. They’ve all been working perfectly. Today I created a parent folder called MY HEALTH. I wanted to create subfolders called TKR and another called Fibromyalgia. The TKR subfolder went right into the MY HEALTH parent folder, but I cannot create a second subfolder for FIBROMYALGIA. It’s very frustrating because it works sometimes and doesn’t at other times. Is there perhaps a limit of how many parent or subfolders we can create? I deleted some older parent folders that were no longer useful, but that didn’t allow me to create the subfolders we’ve been discussing. BTW, none of my folders, either parent or child, were created in Gmail or on my laptop. All were created when I got my iPhone 14 Pro. I’m running iOS 16.5.1. But thanks everybody for your generosity and time.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 30, 2023 02:00 PM in response to bailier

Bailer-thanks for your detailed response. I did create parent folders and some subfolders under those. For example: created a parent called FINANCIAL. Under that I created subfolders such as Taxes and another called School Loans. They’ve all been working perfectly. Today I created a parent folder called MY HEALTH. I wanted to create subfolders called TKR and another called Fibromyalgia. The TKR subfolder went right into the MY HEALTH parent folder, but I cannot create a second subfolder for FIBROMYALGIA. It’s very frustrating because it works sometimes and doesn’t at other times. Is there perhaps a limit of how many parent or subfolders we can create? I deleted some older parent folders that were no longer useful, but that didn’t allow me to create the subfolders we’ve been discussing. BTW, none of my folders, either parent or child, were created in Gmail or on my laptop. All were created when I got my iPhone 14 Pro. I’m running iOS 16.5.1. But thanks everybody for your generosity and time.

Jun 30, 2023 10:16 AM in response to bruno75

Bruno: thanks for your input. Basically it’s a two fold problem.

  1. I have tried to add a subfolder like MY SURGERY to a parent folder called MY HEALTH. When returning to my list of folders, the new subfolder does not show at all
  2. I have tried saving the new email to the parent folder but it just goes directly to the parent folder. The gmail application I used at work never had this issue. Finally, I’ve been the family geek for too long to forget about rebooting the iphone. So many issues have been solved with that but not this one.

Jun 30, 2023 09:50 AM in response to mjelley

Hey there mjelley,


There aren't any settings in an iPhone to change regarding what you're asking. That being said, we'd like to help rule out some other possible causes, along with learning more about what's happening:


  1. Upon testing adding a new folder to an already existing one in the Mail app on our own iPhone, we see that if you expand the folder to view the subfolders included, it remains expanded upon closing/opening the Mail app. If you test expanding any folders that you wish to see the subfolders for, does it remain expanded when closing/opening Mail on your iPhone? Or, is the issue that's occurring where you're completely missing your subfolders even when tapping upon the folder that contains them?
  2. When did this start to occur?
  3. Sometimes unexpected behavior can be resolved with a restart: Restart your iPhone


Cheers!

Jun 30, 2023 11:37 AM in response to mjelley

Hello mjelley,


Thank you for the follow-up. Upon further testing, it appears that you may not be able to add subfolders to existing Gmail folders that were not created from your iPhone.


If you create a new mailbox (i.e. "parent folder") using the steps in the following article, and then create a subfolder and place it's location in the "parent folder" it seems to work as expected.


Use mailboxes to organize email on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support


We hope that helps.


Take care.

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Subfolders not showing in apple mail iphone 14 Pro iOS 16.5.1

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