Apple Mail Custom Columns

[Bodog]

An interesting dilemma that I wonder if anyone else has encountered:

Most of you probably already know that setting custom columns in Apple Mail affects every mailbox app-wide. So, if I add a "to" column to one of my sub-folders, it will add that column to every folder in the app.

Except the Sent folders, which have their own custom mapping to (smartly) show the To column instead, since you already know who it's from (you).

I use Gmail or Google Apps for almost all of my accounts with their recommended settings. The problem I run into is when searching my Sent Items on my iMac, it of course only searches emails archived by that computer. If I am sending from my iPhone or MacBook, then these emails are stored in the remote Sent folder.

I have no problem using this consolidated folder, except that it displays the fields of the normal folders, which is the From field rather than the To field. Adding the To field adds it app-wide and includes my Inbox, where it's redundant.

Has anyone come across a solution to let Apple Mail treat arbitrary folders views as if they were Sent folders? This seems like it would be a handy function for Gmail setups.