Automatically delete Smart Mailbox contents?

Does anyone know of an easy way to automatically delete all messages within a specific Smart Mailbox when Mail is opened? I found an Automator action for selecting Smart Folder contents in the Finder, but nothing for Smart Mailboxes.
Thanks,
Sky

Hi Dan,
Thanks for the speedy reply. I do understand the difference between smart mailboxes and real folders, and I suppose either could work for my application. What I'm looking for is an add-on like Johan Carlsson's Get Smart Folder Contents Automator add-on (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/getsmartfoldercontents.html) that works instead with Smart Mailboxes.
Setting up a rule in Mail.app will not work for me as I'm using SpamSieve and have the Junk filters disabled, so again it would have to be an Automator add-on that processes local mail folders.
Regards,
Sky

Similar Messages

How to Delete smart mailboxes

How to Delete smart mailboxes
MacBook 15
OSX 10.8.5

When I do this, then quit Mail, and then relaunch Mail, the heading is gone. Have you tried that?
Ernie

How do I restore a deleted smart mailbox OS 10.6?

I'd like to restore a deleted smart mailbox in OS 10.6 - I have a Time Machine back-up, can I find the smart mailbox there?

I would also prefer the gaelic script, instead of the default latin one.
The tech specs for OS X lists the 18 languages in which the UI is localized:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
Unfortunately gaelic is not yet among them. You can ask Apple for this here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Putting gaelic at the top of the list in system prefs/language & text/languages cannot affect the OS UI, but will ensure that any app you install which does include a gaelic localization will display that way, and should also make gaelic the the default spell checker (if you install one) and make files sort in gaelic sort order.

Mail: smart mailbox contents disappears/search doesn't work & fix is only temporary

Since installing Mavericks (including the Mail update), the contents of my Smart Mailboxes disappears (the Mailboxes themselves are listed, there's just no content) and my ability to get results from Search within Mail disappears.
I have done a lot of searching here and via Google and read other people with similar problems. I have done the usual magical stuff: resetting permissions (including the version that involves the command "resetpassword"), deleting caches, etc. - but to no avail.
Spotlight clearly knows about all this mail, because I can find it with HoudahSpot, which uses the same database, but somehow Mail is not able to read what Spotlight knows.
Now there is a commonly recommended fix, which is to go to Terminal and type some version of:
mdimport ~/Library/Mail/V2
This works (as does reindexing the entire disk)! But only for about a half-hour to an hour, at which point Mail reverts to its previous state. Running the command again works again, but once again the cure goes away shortly after. Once again, the Smart Mailboxes are empty and search in Mail stops giving reslts.
Can anyone suggest a real, permanent solution to this problem, besides switching to another email program?

Okay, I think I understand better now. So I just ran a test, by creating the following rule:
I specifically chose an address (obviously not the one shown) that I had a message from in my Inbox, and a word that was present in the subject line of several messages in my Inbox. When I ran this rule on my Inbox, it copied exactly the messages I would have expected into the test mailbox. Are you seeing different behavior with the same rule, or is your rule constructed differently?
If the difficulty is with running the rule, note that (as I said earlier) rules only run automatically on unread incoming messages. It won't run automatically on existing messages or on messages on an IMAP mail server that you have read on another device using (in which case they will have been marked as read). If you need to run this in such conditions, you'll have to either run the rule manually or run it via an AppleScript or something similar that is somehow (via something other than Mail) made to execute at certain times/intervals or under certain conditions.
And you're correct, a smart mailbox would be totally inappropriate for what you're trying to do! It would behave exactly as you guessed.

Can't delete smart mailbox

I have a number of old smart mailboxes that I've been trying to delete. When I delete them ('control-click, delete mailbox), they disappear. No error messages, etc.
About a minute later, though, they just reappear.
Any thoughts?

If you go to option two, hold down the option key while using the Finder "Go To Folder" command. Enter ~/Library/Mail/V2.
If you prefer to make your user library permanently visible, use the Terminal command found below.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/04/show-library-directory-in-mac-os-x-lion/
You might want to bookmark the command. I had to use it again after I installed 10.8.2. I have also been informed that if you drag the user library to Finder it will remain visible.

Delete smart mailbox?

I made a mistake and now I can't undo it. How do I delete a smart mailbox? Thank.

"To delete a Smart Mailbox you no longer want:
* Select the mailbox in the panel at left, then from the top menu: Mailbox > Delete… "
And other good tips...
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=106001&catId=100461&tid=100008&p=1& title=MacOS+X%3a+Smartmailboxes

Can't delete smart mailboxes...

I have some smart mailboxes that I can't seem to delete. I delete them, and they disappear... and then they reappear, right back in the same place.
They were created some time ago – when I was using Lion, I beleive – and I'm wondering if they are somehow corrupted.
Any ideas?

Before getting too involved on trying to fix this, start with simple things. Disable any extensions or add ons to mail and try. You could create a new user account for testing. Log into the new user account and add the mail account there and test. If it works there, then the problem lies within your user folder. We can go from there.
You could also do some simple maintenance first. Open Disk Utility and select your boot volume. Repair permissions and restart the computer and test.
You can carry the permission repair a bit further. Disk Utility only repairs global permissions. Follow the steps here to repair User Permissions.
http://www.macissues.com/2014/04/11/how-to-fix-home-folder-permissions-in-os-x/
Before doing anything, be sure you have a backup in case problems occur.

Delete Smart Mailbox -"Mail With Attachments''

If I delete my Smart Mailbox "Mail with Attachments" will the original emails be deleted in the other mailboxes? My OS is Tiger 10.4.11
Thank you.

In a word, no.
Messages in a Smart mailbox include, or are a pointer to the original message in the originating mailbox only. You can delete a message from a Smart mailbox, and the original message in the originating mailbox will also be deleted, but the same does not apply when deleting an entire Smart Mailbox.

Can't Delete/Rename Smart Mailbox

I don't seem to be able to rename or delete smart mailboxes in mail. I control-click to choose Rename or Delete, I can temporarily change the name or remove the mailbox, but after quitting and relaunching mail the old smart mailbox with the old name is still there. Happens on both my laptop and desktop, both running 10.9.2.

Lisa,
Open the Inbox of only the main account, click on Mailbox in the menubar, and choose Rebuild. During Rebuild all messages will disappear from the list of messages, but then will reappear when Rebuild finishes.
You may want to make a backup copy of the Mail folder, for peace of mind before doing this. In the Finder, open Home/Library and find the Mail folder (Home is the folder that opens when you click on the Icon of a House in the Sidebar to the Finder window, btw), Control-click over the Mail folder, choose Duplicate, and then drag the resulting copy to the Desktop strictly for temporary backup.
Have you ever used the command to Erase Deleted Message, btw?
Ernie

Archiving a Smart Mailbox to a RAW Message Source using Automator?

In MAIL I can set a smart mailbox to say get emails from ("any" recipient contains [email protected])
But in Automator when I use the Filter messages in mail I can't be that broad with my selection, I can only select sender, and not ANY recipient. Be that someone cc'd with that email address, the sender or reciever.
One way around this is allowing Automator to select a Smart Mailbox from MAIL to do the selecting.
But I can't get Automator to select a Smart Mailbox.
What I need to do is take my Smart Mailbox content and every X# of days, for my needs it would be 7 days, export out last X# of days, again for me its 7 days, worth of emails as a RAW Message Source and append it to an existing RAW Message Source file in a specified folder.
Or if appending to an existing file is not possible then create individual files but name them something like, Weekending_10_282006, where the date in file name matches the day the script was run.
Then place this to always run on a Saturday.
I am using this to backup messages for specific projects at work. And I would like to use it to backup emails from my cousin who is serving overseas in Iraq.
Thank you for your help.
Ed Walsh
Mac Mini Intel duo Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2gb ram, 120gb hard drive

Back up all data.
Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SmartMailboxes.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item selected. Quit the application if it's running. Move the selected item to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Relaunch the application, create some smart mailboxes, and test. If there's no change, quit again and put the item you moved back where it was, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place. Otherwise, delete the item you moved.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Smart Mailbox folders

Hi
I have created several new smart mailbox folders to file my incoming emails but they are purple with a cog in the middle rather than blue. These purple folders will not allow me to drag emails into. Is there a simple process to make them receptive?
Thanks

boxhead wrote:
The purple folders are Smart Mailbox folders, whose content is dependent on the conditions you set up for each of them.
That isn't quite correct, actually.
In Leopard there are *"Smart Mailboxes"* and also *"Smart Mailbox Folders"*. Both look like purple folders with cogs.
+Smart Mailbox+ contents depend on criteria set for them.
+Smart Mailbox Folders+ are only useful for organizing +Smart Mailboxes+.
Of course, email can't be put into either one.
!http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8663/vptx1xp7.png!

Smart mailboxs does not show any content.

I have a 27" iMac, late 2009, running iOS 10.10.2. None of my smart mailboxes show any content. I have rebuilt my mail and checked the smart mailbox conditions. I created a new smart mailbox, Unread, Delivered this week, and still no content. Thanks,

Have you reindexed your mail by deleting these three Envelope files from the Users/Home/Mail/V2/MailData folder and rebooting?

Smart Mailbox -- How Do I Automatically Move Old Emails?

I Have a huge pile of emails in my inbox -- like 20,000+ from over a number of years.
I figure storage is cheap and I'm lazy so I'm not up to deleting / sorting / organizing / ... but I wouldn't mind dumping the old emails to a storage folder that I could still find stuff if I needed to search.
I thought smart mailboxes would be the answer so I made one with the rule "if date received is before December 31, 2008." The mailbox now has all those more-than-a-year-old emails but so does my inbox. And if I delete the email from the inbox it disappears from the "old emails" smart mailbox too.
What I'd like to do is set it up so any email more than a year old is moved from my inbox to an old emails folder / mailbox / whatever. My inbox would only hold emails less than a year old and all the older messages would go elsewhere.
Is there an easy way to do this move automatically?

Hi there James, yes a Smart Mailbx is just an Alias to ones with certain criteria in your other boxes.
Just create a new Mailbox>On My Mac, then make a Rule>Date Recieved>is 365 days old>Move message to>then choose your new folder/mailbox.

Content of all smart mailboxes in 10.9 disappeared

Hello,
After installing 10.9 (upgrading) on my Macbook Pro all the content of my various smart mailboxes in my Mail 7 have disappeared.
Why, and especially, how I'll revived the content?
TIA

Hi, I'm not sure but maybe you disabled spotlight ? I do not see smart mailboxes in case of disabled spotlight.
Check this page http://osxdaily.com/2011/12/10/disable-or-enable-spotlight-in-mac-os-x-lion/

How to get accurate count of contents of smart mailbox?

I have a smart mailbox defined as "sender is a member of a group x" and "date received is within last 2 days." When I click on it, Mail indicates "(8 messages)" -- but there are only 7 listed. I've tried the sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum command in Terminal, I've rebuilt the individual mailboxes making up this count (and the smart mailbox itself) and I even deleted the smart mailbox itself and recreated it, to no avail.
Any other suggestions for getting a correct count?

Is it possible that mysterious 8th message is one you deleted, but is still registering as being there, even though you can't see it? Have you tried enabling the View > Show Deleted Messages command to see if it appears then?
If that command shows you nothing, then you can completely rebuild your Mail index to see if that solves your problem:
1. Quit Mail.
2. Go to Home/Library/Mail and remove (+*do not delete yet*+) the Envelope Index file to the Desktop.
3. Restart Mail and let it import your existing mailboxes. When that's done, your index will be brand new and with any luck that message should no longer show up in a count. Now you can delete the Envelope Index file you removed previously.
Mulder

Automatically delete Smart Mailbox contents?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for