How to amend Rules in Mail

I am using Mail on my Mac and also have it configured on my iPhone and iPad.
I have an alias e-mail address and set up a rule for any mails to that e-mail address to go straight into a specific folder (mailbox) within Mail.
I am now trying to amend the rule but cannot access it.
I have tried via Mail > Preferences but no rules are displayed.
I have also tried to delete the folder and then send a test mail to the e-mail address, but when the mail arrives in the inbox it just creates a new folder again.
How can I amend the rule in Mail?
Thank you

Many thanks. Would be more helpful if the rules in Mail on my Mac reflected those in iCloud but I followed your advice and made the change successfully.
Two other linked questions:
1. Why can't I access icloud.com on my iPad? (to effect the change, I had to use my Mac to go to icloud.com)
2. Can the e-mail alias addresses be colour coded so that I can easily identify incoming mail?
Thank you

Similar Messages

How can I remove a flag using a rule in Mail.app?

I'm using Mail Act-On to flag messages that are important. I also have got a smart mailbox that displays only those messages that are flagged, this is my "To Do" mailbox.
Once I've read and answered the message I want to remove the flag, preferrably via a rule using Mail Act-On as well. However in the rules dialog in the Mail.app preferences there's only the option to set a flag, not to remove one.
Can anyone help: how can I remove a flag using a rule?? Maybe via Applescript as the last resort?
Thanks for any advice Jan

Hi Jan
I haven't gotten around to put unread and unflag into Mail-ActOn but MailTags has the functionality. MailTags also allows you to mark a message unread via act-On rule.
It is interesting to note that apple doesn't include unflag and unread as the rules were originally intended to apply only to new messages (of which none should be read or flagged) with that logic, there would be no need for unread, unflagg.
@David: The reason to do it via Act-On rule would be to set up a sequence of events, one of which is to unflag, others may be to set keywords, move messages, set colors etc.
Scott

How can I copy the Mail "rules" I have already setup on my old MacBook over to the new machine?

Setting up my new MacBook Pro. How can I copy the Mail "rules" I have already setup on my old MacBook over to the new machine?
Is there a file I can copy & paste?

Thanks Barry & all,
Is it enough to just copy the rule-related files ??
i.e.
Library/Mail/V2/MailData/RulesActiveState.plist
Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist
Library/Mail/V2/MailData/UnsyncedRules.plist
What you suggest copies the local mailbox content + all the settings ...
while what I need is much less... and I'd like to be able to sync rules also in the future
by copying something light and simple ... not the entire Library/Mail folder
Many thanks,
Stefania

How many rules will Mail allow???

That's the question... How many rules will Mail allow??? I can't find any documentation indicating a quantity. I can not save more that six. Am I missing something?

What was occuring. I was able to save and apply a rule once. If I closed mail, the rule just dissapeared. I was able to replicate this time and time again. I post4ed this question once before on 5/10/13. https://discussions.apple.com/message/21985327#21985327 . Because I received no response to that querry, I posted this again. Thank you for your repsone. I'm not sure what has occurred but I am able to make additional rules, save apply them; quit the application and upon re launch they are there. I have no explination as to what facillitated the change. Thank you for your response and querry.

Can Rules in Mail be viewed in Alphabetical Order? How is this done?

Can Rules in Mail be viewed in Alphabetical Order? How is this done?

The default tables in the "Blank" templates in numbers contain one Header Row and one Header column. These rows and columns have special properties, including the ability to be 'frozen' in place as the rest of the table is scrolled.
Place your headings in a Header Row or a Header Column.
In the Table menu, you'll find "Freeze Header Rows" and "Freeze Header columns."
"Freeze" does not apply in Print view, where Header Rows and Columns are repeated on each 'page'.
Regards,
Barry
PS:For more on header and Footer rows/columns (and other features of Numbers), read the first four chapters of the numbers '09 User Guide. You can download the guide via the Help menu in Numbers'09. search "freeze" for more on freezing header rows, etc.

How do I create a rule in mail that only applies to flagged messages?

I would like to create a rule in mail that would delete messages of a certain age, but I need to keep some messages safe. I would like to be able to flag these or put them in a mailbox and have a rule making messages with those flags or mailboxes safe from being deleted. Is that something I can do? Thanks!

You can create a local mailbox and move the messages you want to keep there. I don't see any kind to rule you can make to move a flagged message, so you would probably have to do it manually, unless you can use other criteria to identify messages you wish to keep.
If you're using the server settings in mail to determine the age before deletion, the local mailboxes would be safe from that deletion. You can set to store messages on server for up to 30 days before deletion. This will work for IMAP accounts, but don't apply to the inbox. Just to the other main mailboxes such as Sent, Trash, etc.
If you create a rule to delete messages after a certain age (outside of what the servers would do automatically), I think it would only work on the inbox if at all, but not sure. If it were applied through all, it would delete them from the local folders also.
You can create a smart mailbox and input certain criteria such as flagged, age. You could exclude any mailbox that you don't want to include, such as local folders, by adding that to part of the criteria. You would have to delete the messages manually as they accumulate. This would be useful when you save a lot of mail, but say you only want to keep messages less than a year old. This would help you instantly see messages that meet your deletion criteria without having to manually check messages for age.

Cannot establish new Rules in Mail 7.3

For at least the last 6 months when I try to set up new Rules in Mail, they don't stay. The old ones I set up >6 months ago always appear to work, but if I define a new rule and apply it immediately it works,but next time I open Mail it is gone from the list of Rules.
Any suggestions for how to fix this? I like to filter some incoming messages into certain mailboxes using Rules but can no longer do this because new Rules have become ephemeral
TIA for any help.
Caroline

total 224184
drwxr-xr-x 35 501 20 -      1190 Jul 2 15:50 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 7 501 20 -       238 Dec 15 2012 ..
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      9029 Jul 2 15:50 Accounts.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -       181 Dec 13 2012 AppleScriptMigration.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-------@ 1 501 20 -   2105344 Dec 13 2012 AvailableFeeds
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     15141 Jul 2 15:40 BackupTOC.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -    354876 Jul 1 21:24 DefaultCounts
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 - 107220992 Jul 2 15:47 Envelope Index
com.apple.metadata:FileSyncAgentExcludeItem        1
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     32768 Jul 2 07:24 Envelope Index-shm
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -   2801632 Jul 2 15:50 Envelope Index-wal
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     32768 Jan 28 07:04 ExternalUpdates.storedata
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     32768 Jul 2 07:25 ExternalUpdates.storedata-shm
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -         0 Jan 28 07:04 ExternalUpdates.storedata-wal
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -       915 Jul 2 15:49 FlagMailboxes.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -   1365128 Jul 1 06:58 LSMMap2
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -    137048 Dec 7 2012 MessageRules.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -    135832 Dec 7 2012 MessageRules.plist.backup
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-------@ 1 501 20 -      4615 Sep 8 2005 MessageSorting.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-------@ 1 501 20 -      4615 Sep 8 2005 MessageSorting.plist.backup
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-------@ 1 501 20 -     28672 Sep 11 2012 MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded3
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      3944 Dec 13 2012 OpenedAttachmentsMigration.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     18413 Jul 2 13:25 OpenedAttachmentsV2.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      6743 Jun 23 06:59 RulesActiveState.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
drwx------ 32 501 20 -      1088 Jan 25 14:37 Signatures
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -    170952 Jan 19 2004 Signatures.plist
com.apple.FinderInfo       32
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     25759 Dec 13 2012 SmartMailboxes.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     25758 Dec 12 2012 SmartMailboxes.plist.backup
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      6353 Jul 2 15:49 SmartMailboxesLocalProperties.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      7562 Jul 2 07:25 SyncedFilesInfo.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -    134527 Jan 25 14:37 SyncedRules.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -     34724 Jan 25 14:37 SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      1992 Jun 23 06:59 UnsyncedRules.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -      5214 Jul 2 15:49 VIPSenders.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -       944 Dec 13 2012 VersionedSmartMailboxes.plist
com.apple.quarantine       19
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501 20 -       944 Dec 12 2012 VersionedSmartMailboxes.plist.backup
com.apple.quarantine       19

Setting Composition Rule In Mail

THE SET-UP
I've got mail configured to send and receive from a gmail account and my school-issued student account with the outrageously long extension @student.schoolname.edu. I use my school account strictly for communicating with other students and faculty. Everything else goes through gmail. The extensions for faculty are simply @schoolname.edu
THE PROBLEM
Seeing as how my composing rules are currently set to default new messages as being sent from my gmail account, and seeing as how I'm too spacy to double check stuff and switch my address in the message window before I send, I realized I just sent a whole bunch of emails to school people from my gmail. This is certainly not a tragedy, it's just kind of annoying and unprofessional-looking in my opinion.
HERE'S THE QUESTION
When I'm composing message, is there a way to program Mail or set a rule so that when I enter "schoolname.edu" in the TO: line, the message will default to my school account?
For example, if I open a new message window and type "[email protected]" or "[email protected]," I'd like for the sending address to change to my school address rather than my gmail.
I've clicked around in the menus and haven't seen anything incredibly obvious to this effect, so I'm hoping somebody out there can help. If you can't, I guess I'll just have to learn to double check things.

no, there is now way to do that in mail.

Rules in Mail are not working!!

I set up rules in mail to moved messages after 7 days old from date send and will not apply! not working! if this can help I am using an AOL account. . . any suggestions on how to solve this issue. I am also running SL . . thanks.

Hey, Ray & welcome to the forums.
Don't set a 'rule' - go to Mail preferences/general/advanced and do it there √ instead.

Creating rules for Mail - yet visible on iPhone

I fully understand how to create rules for email so that when receiving them, they automatically go into folders. The problem is, if I receive an email that automatically gets sorted into a folder, I can not tell on my iPhone I have actually received a new email.
However, I need to know how to have rules to automatically sort/file emails into a folder, but still know I have received a new email on my iPhone mail.
Anyone got ideas?
Thanks

I can understand not wanting to put out money to gain a feature that you think should be standard.
Here is a link to some Applescripts that I had downloaded in the past. I actually forgot about these. There is a script which will allow you to apply some rules to outgoing messages, but the author of the scripts notes that it is not a perfect solution. Maybe it can help.
If all else fails, maybe you can use smart folders as a sort of go between. Instead of scanning through the sent mail folder and hand picking individual messages to drag to folders, why not set up a smart folder to aggregate all like mail. Then you could just drag the messages from a smart folder to a regular one. It might help speed things up.
I am just about out of ideas. I hope you can come up with a good solution.

Restoring Rules in Mail 6

I made a mistake (helped by nont weel described new functonality): Upgrading from lion to ML I accidentally activate the "document & data" sharing on icloud. This synced the rules of mail 6 of one of my user in icloud. Then in theother user I lost my hundred of rules built in years of work...
I my backup I found the "MessageRules.plist" file but the new mail uses three file to accomplish the job....
file://localhost/Users/macbook/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/RulesActiveState.plist
file://localhost/Users/macbook/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/UnsyncedRules.plist
file://localhost/Users/macbook/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist
After a few try I realized that the file to modify is "UnsyncedRules.plist". I've been able to add a rule (ONLY ONE) from my backup files opening the UnsyncedRules.plist and the MessageRules.plist with XCode draggin it from the second to the first one...
That worked but only for one rule...
Adding other rules causes mail 6 not to recognize the file formatting and report an error or simply rewrite the file from scratch...
I've made a try also with text wrangler but with bad result....
How can i solve (without loosing the email downloaded in this 2 weeks)?
In order to not mistake anymore, where can I find an updated explanation of the meaning of "Document & Data" sharing in iCloud?
Thanks

I had to do the following to restore the signatures and mail rules:
1. Quit Apple Mail
2. Turn of these settings: System settings / iCloud:
    [ ] Mail
    [ ] Documents & Data
3. Copy the old Rules to the new location:
     cd /Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
     cp "/Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/RulesActiveState.plist" .
     cp "/Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist" .
     cp "/Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist" UnsyncedRules.plist
     cp "/Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/MessageRules.plist" .
     rm -rf Signatures
     cp -r "/Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures" .
4. Restart Apple Mail. The old rules and newly copied rules are both there. So I deleted the old rules.
5. System settings / iCloud:
    [ ] Mail
    [x] Documents & Data
6. As old rules moved mails to wrong mailboxes I had to identify these old wrong mailboxes and apply the restored rules to them.
If Apple Mail didn't find the old (wrong) mailboxes it created it new and placed the emails in there. So no emails were lost!
See also "iCloud problem with Mail.app": https://discussions.apple.com/message/20670006#20670006#20670006#20670006

I have a MacBook Pro how can I stop spam mail

How can I stop unwanted mail, i.e. Bulk mail and spam ?

You can't, other than by changing to a new email address and then never giving that out to anyone other and very trusted friends and families. All you can do is try to filter such messages. Mail in Mac OS X has a Junk Mail filter, as may your email provider, or you can use a third-party filter. I use SpamSieve and have found it well worth the cost. For identifiable senders, you can also set a Rule in Mail to mark junk messages as Read and move them automatically to the mail trash.
Regards.

How to block an e-mail address

How can I block a specific e-mail sender ?

No way to set it up in Mail. You can do it with your provider if they have that capability. Yahoo/Att can do it at the website.
You can create a rule in Mail to delete messages from specific senders if you wish.

HT2500 How do you delete bulk mail folder in Mail program?

In my Mail program on my MacBook Air there is a Bulk Mail Folder usually full of annoying junk mail. How do I eliminate this folder so I don't get Bulk mail anymore?

Hi Macmonter,
i have seen the complete post here and realised that your answer should have been selected as most useful, unfortunately Charlie7 didn't tried it and hence it was ignored. I still appreciate your experiemnt.
I am pretty new to this community thing, but i did a lot of experiments with Mail application and hence i m writing this post specifically which might be helpful to others. I use Yahoo Mail (only) for all online services like Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. all possible. It's my central ID now and i cant change it any more. Going online and checking yahoo mail is sometimes very resource taking hence i decided to use mail client like Mail.app. Let me tell you that i personally tried all other mail apps including thunderbird but noticed one very imp thing that when u use Mail.app then your mails 7 their attachments are automatically indexed by Mac OS which is very important feature and when you search something then it searches within your mail also, this is really awesome. This will not happen if u use thunderbird or any other mail client. Also you get to use free Cloud with auto sync. Now this also tells you that I am stuck with 2 (idiotic) giants : Yahoo & Mac OSX Mail.
The thing is, Yahoo now uses IMAP (prior it was POP). IMAP has many advantages over POP for sure. Basically when you use multiple devices, filters and folders and want all those things in Sync. Google for more comparison, but let me tell you IMAP is really good. Now the problem is, Yahoo has powerful spam engine but it calls it 'Bulk Mail'. Apple also has powerful Spam Engine but they call it 'Junk'. So some how you have make apple understand that they are the same words, which is suggested by Mr. Macmonter which is really a great & very useful thing. If you mark 'Bulk Mail' folder as 'Use As Junk' then you are done. All messages from Bulk folder will be routed to Junk and you will see common Junk Folder.
I know there are people who dont want to see that Junk at all! And for that this is smart trick :
Configure your Yahoo as IMAP (which is default). Clear all messages from online Bulk Mail folder using browser login. Then Sync so all your online folders are downloaded if any and all your mails. Basically this is for people who has created online filters and folders (i have 12 folders)
Once your account is in Sync, disconnect. Export all your folders one by one slowly. It takes times if you have many mails and attachments. Once this is done successfully, DELETE this account!
Now create Yahoo POP account. Apple dont allow you to do this now, but there is trick. You will have to give wrong user-pass and shift to manual settings and there you can give correct server config which should be POP settings of Yahoo. And take this account online.
In online Yahoo Mail, set 'Do not download spam' under POP and Forwarders. So this will only start downloading Inbox messages. Remember POP dont see any other folders, hence we removed all filters and downloaded all folders. IT will download all mails coming to Inbox filtering Spam. So you never see spam. If you want to see some then you can go online periodically and check manually.
Now import your recently exported folders in this account and create filters and rules in Mail.app for routing of incoming messages for particular messages.
This gives you all old messages, pure inbox from yahoo, 2 way spam filter yahoo & Mac, and local routing of messages with index, smart folders and cloud! Only thing you dont get here is Sync with multiple devices if you have iMac, Air & iPhone. But there i suggest you to keep one of them as center for downloads and others should keep just 15days old copy. This will also save your resources!
Enjoy..

How do I restore smtp mail setting from time machine?

Earlier today I was fooling around with my smtp mail settings and managed to mess them up.
How do I restore smtp mail setting from time machine?
I'm using Lion 10.7.4
Messages and incoming mail works fine. It's just the smtp mail setting that's the problem.
Any help greatly appreciated.

The mail rules are stored in your ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~mail/Data.MailData folder, in a plist called SyncedRules.plist.
If you're signed into iCloud D&D, that's where you'll find it.
If you're *not* signed into iCloud, then you probably have a folder called something like ~/Library/Mobile Documents.####### where the # signs are actual numbers. Digging into that folder, you'll fild the SyncedRules.plist file.
Thing is, I don't know how Mail uses rules without iCloud; if there's a "local" rules location. There probably is, but someone else who's not using iCloud may have to help you there...

How to amend Rules in Mail

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for