How do I stop auto archive in Mac Mail

Hello duckandpenguin,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We understand you want to stop your Mail messages from being archived. We'd first start by checking the Mailbox Behaviors preferences for your email accounts, to ensure that Archive is not selected as the Junk Mailbox or Trash Mailbox Check out this article to Change Mailbox Behaviors preferences in Mail on Mac

We would also suggest to be sure the Archive is not selected under the option, to "Move discarded messages". Check out this article to Archive emails in Mail on Mac.

Lastly, make sure there aren't any rules set up to move the emails to the Archive folder. Take a look at this article to Use rules to manage emails you receive in Mail on Mac.

Reply back with any questions or concerns.

All the best.

I stopped this by setting up a rule in my mail app - if any condition = the account (and I selected the gmail account) then and the action I chose was "move message to - inbox and the same gmail it should have gone to.) This seems to have allowed junk filtering to work but all messages are now going to my mail inbox and not 'archive'