Mailbox vs. smart mailbox - advantages?

I'm converting from Outlook express to Mail. I get the concept of smart mailboxes (e.g., all the mail stays in the inbox and the smart mailboxes are just searches).
However, I liked the rules setup with specific mailboxes in outlook. As far as I can tell I can do that in Mail, but is there any advantage in doing it one way or the other? Does the inbox eventually get too large if you just use smart mailboxes?
20" iMac intel duo Mac OS X (10.4.7)

It is not meant really to be an either/or thing. I use the Inbox for the mail that has justt recently come in. I've gotten into the habit of deleting of foldering email -- putting them into other folders. So, you don't quite have he idea, as it is not that the mail stays in the Inbox, but that it stays wherever it actually is but is also put in this virtual mailbox.
Smart mailboxes are excellent for gathering messages together with specific attributes, as you can probably imagine.
Currently, the only "permanent" Smart mailboxes I have are: Flagged (that shows me all flagged messages, wherever they are) and Unread (as I automatically folder some incoming mail, and this shows me all the unread in one "folder").
I often create temporary smart mailboxes when I have a complex search to perform (all messages in a certain date range from a particular party with one or more attachments, for example).
Fred

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Difference between Smart Mailbox and Smart Mailbox Folder

What are the reason(s) for using one over the other?

I know it's a bit less than obvious, but they're not equivalent or an "either/or". A "Smart Mailbox Folder" allows you to put your Smart Mailboxes into folders for grouping purposes. For instance, you could have a Smart Mailbox that collects all your messages to and from a friend of yours named "Sam", one that collected message to and from "Frieda", etc. and collect them all in a Smart Mailbox Folder titled "Friends". It's strictly an organization thing, for your own convenience, sort of like putting playlists in folders in iTunes, if you're familiar with that. If you only have a couple of Smart Mailboxes, a Smart Mailbox Folder probably won't be of much help, but if you have a bunch of Smart Mailboxes, organizing them into folders might be useful.
Hope this explains things.
Regards.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

Are mailboxes and smart mailboxes really missing?

Just got my new iPad. Set up mail. Am I missing something, or is creating mailboxes and smart mailboxes really absent here? If so, then it's really not going to be possible for me to jettison my laptop top as I was hoping to do. In which case, color me majorly disappointed.

Thanks for confirming that I wasn't missing some in context aspect. (I see from another reply that it may be possible to set up Mailboxes within Mobile Me and have them appear on the iPad). As to research, I assumed in buying at this early stage that it would be evolving -- and that Apple will be watching closely to see which additional features to tweak/add. So I've also gone to their feedback page to request this one, plus an ability to view more than 200 msgs at a time.

All The Notes and All my personalized Mailboxes and Smart mailboxes have disappeared

When I woke up my MacBook Pro and wanted to check email, all The Notes and All my personalized Mailboxes and Smart mailboxes have disappeared.
I only have the standard mailboxes like inbox, sent, trash, etc...
Anyone can help with this?
Thanks
Short background:
I have upgraded recently from Snow Leopard to Lion.
I have lost a lot of software (and had to re-purchase licences and re-install it) but then I have said to myself BE IT! great that I did not lose critical stuff.
I have also said that I will do the Time Machine back-up when everything is working fine....
Well, I think I was a bit too quick with my statement and too slow with the back-up...
Mugur

You are not getting them from there, you just verifying if you have a back up with notes (you will have to check the date and try to remember if had those at that date and time.) Then you have two ways to go - the apple way and third party way.
1 Apple way - restore from back up (downside is you going to lose changes to your phone since the last back up)
be careful - not to overwrite last back up when you connect your phone, I would find and copy back up file just in case to external drive. You can find location of your actual back up file using that article
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946
if you expand where it says "where back ups are stored on the computer"
how to restore from itunes back up here
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
2. not Apple way.- there are programs for windows that allow you to look inside of actual back up file.
Google is your friend for that one.
If you don't like my results just adjust search to your liking.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1_____enUS481US481&io n=1&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&rlz=1C1_____enUS481US481&sclient=psy-ab&q=how% 20to%20look%20inside%20of%20iphone%20back%20up&oq=&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=87ac1fa8918878 c8&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.aWM&biw=1280&bih=643

Lost all my mailbox and smart mailbox folders when I had to reinstall Mail

My messages were garbled...a message from one person today was attached to a message from a completely different person sent weeks ago. Called Apple and we removed Mail and plist from the Finder Library. Now my new messages are fine. But I've lost all my Mailbox folders where I organized messages. Can't find the messages on the dotmac server either. Where are those messages? I need to find them.

Mailboxes and messages are located in ~/Library/Mail Check that folder to see if any folders are named for your accounts (e.g., [email protected]). Look in these folders if they contain any messages.
Alternatively, you can do a Spotlight search for a specific message that you know you had. In the Search results, right-click to Show in Finder. This may lead you to where all your other messages are.
Other than re-importing messages from within Mail.app, I don't know how you can restore everything including folder structures, etc. Perhaps someone else in this forum can give pointers. Re smart mailboxes, you can just recreate them once everything is back in.

Can I sync Mailboxes? Or do they need to be Smart Mailboxes?

Hi all,
Awhile back (sometime during OSX 10.3 or so), I set up several different mailboxes in Mail to help me organize my emails. For example, I have one mailbox dedicated to receipts that have been emailed to me, which I keep indefinitely for tax purposes. Another mailbox is for a certain email discussion list I belong to, in which I keep certain emails with information I'd like to keep on hand.
Now, fast forward to today. I use both my G4 iMac and my Intel iMac to check for mail. And, of course, my inboxes are perfectly synchronized. However, not so with my mailboxes. For example, if, on my G4, I drag an emailed receipt from my inbox to my "receipts" mailbox, the email doesn't show up at all when I open up Mail on my Intel iMac, since it's no longer in my Inbox. So, there's no way to access the receipt from that computer. I have to boot up my G4 iMac to access that particular email.
Is there a way to sync my mailboxes up? Or do I need to periodically archive my mailboxes on one computer and restore those archives on my other computer to do a type of "manual sync" between the two computers?
Or, should I just change them all over to Smart Mailboxes? Smart Mailboxes will sync up automatically won't they? And I can drag emails from my inbox to a smart mailbox, right?
Thanks for your help!
Kevin

The answer should actually be in your Mail's built in Help system.
Assuming you're using a MobileMe email account it's very easy to keep your folders in sync as long as you use IMAP. I may be wrong but it sounds like the mailboxes you're trying to sync are in fact stored on your Mac and not in the server. in the list of mailboxes in Mail do you see the mailboxes listed under "MY MOBILEME" or "ON MY MAC"?
Smart mailboxes are just mailboxes that automatically gather together emails that match the criteria specified by you.
In Apple Mail Help search for "mailboxes" for lots of info about mailboxes, including syncing. Also search for "IMAP" if you don't know what that is.
If you're using another email service other than MobileMe then you can still do the automatic syncing of mailboxes if IMAP is supported. Gmail for example supports it.

How do I include sub-folders in a Smart Mailbox?

I've set up a Smart Mailbox using the following rules (ALL) :
1. Message is in Mailbox XXXX
2. Subject contains YYYY
3. Contains attachments
But only 3 messages were found! I then realised that although I carefully selected a high-level mailbox (XXXX), it hasn't looked in the large and very complex set of sub-folders.
Obviously, I don't want a smart mailbox for every sub-folder below XXXX. How do I force a Mail Smart Mailbox to look not only in a selected mailbox, but all its sub-folders too?

Never mind. I worked it out for myself.
Step 1. I created a new Smart Mailbox for any messages in mailbox XXXX, and all its lower level sub-folders, using the Match ANY rule.
Message is in Mailbox XXXX
Message is in Mailbox XXXX-AA
Message is in Mailbox XXXX-BB
Message is in Mailbox XXXX-BB-1
(etc)
Step 2. I then recreated the original Smart Mailbox (OP), but this time I stipulated
1. Message is in Mailbox (new Smart Mailbox). Rules 2 and 3 were unchanged.
It meant I had to create two Smart Mailboxes instead of one, and cost me ten minutes extra work, but it works. That's the main thing.

Smart Mailbox doesn't show mailbox

I recently broke down and changed my Mail display from "Classic" to the default for Mountain Lion (and Lion).
I have smart mailboxes that contain messages from several mailboxes.
Even though I have View >> Message Attributes >> Mailbox checked, I cannot see in which mailbox a given message is unless I revert to the Classic display.
What am I doing wrong?

Surely someone else knows what I'm talking about? Isn't the whole point of the Favorites Bar that you can put any Mailbox or Smart Mailbox in it, for easy access?

Smart mailbox & inbox

I've set up a Smart Mailbox such that all mails that agree to a certain condition go into that mailbox. This works, but the mails also appear in my Inbox. How can I make sure they only go to the Smart Mailbox?

Smart mailboxes do not store emails themselves as they are essentially just "saved searches". In other words, when you click on a smart mailbox, it just displays all messages from other mailboxes which match certain criteria.
You want to instead be using just regular mailboxes. Delete the smart mailbox, create a "mailbox" instead, and set up a rule to move all emails matching your criteria into that mailbox.

Smart mailbox questions

Hi,
I have created a couple of smart mailboxes. I am new to Leopard, but not to macs at all.
Is there a way to have the message move to the smart mailbox and not be in my inbox? Or maybe I am missing the point of the smart mailbox and I should set up a basic folder and use Rules to control this?
I love the smart mailbox feature, but what I am trying to do is have those emails not clutter up my inbox by having them move to their own smart mailbox.
thanks for the help!

Welcome to the discussions, crojack.
Mail messages are stored in ordinary mailboxes. Smart mailboxes give an alternate view of the messages, but do not actually store them. You could for example have a mailbox for messages from your boss, and another for messages from research colleagues - and have a smart mailbox that lists any messages in either of those mailboxes with the subject "special project".
AK

Where are Smart Mailboxes stored?

I want to copy over my smart mail boxes from my old 12" PB to my new MBP but cannot find them when asked using "Import Mailboxes" under the File pulldown menu.
TIA
12.PB. (Rev A). & 1.83 GHz MBP Mac OS X (10.4.5)

My impression was that these "smart" mailboxes were virtual. That they presented messages that reside in other mailboxes and that meet some particular filtering criteria. They don't get copied to the smart mailbox, the smart mailbox entries just point at the message in the mailbox in which they reside.
Also, keep in mind that IMAP mail servers, such as that run by Apple for .Mac subscribers, keep their mail on the server. That way if you have multiple computers, say a desktop at home or in the office and a laptop for mobile use, both always see the same messages in the same mailboxes. In this case, you'll never find those messages on your local system 'cause they're not there.
Mailboxes associated with POP3 accounts (more typical for private ISPs, e.g.) are local files and / or directories. And you can always explicitly create a local mailbox. If you copy mail from a server-based IMAP mailbox to such a local mailbox, then the mail will reside on your Mac, of course.
Randall Schulz
iMac 20" Core Duo; MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.5)

What's the difference between Smart Mailboxes and Rules?

I want to segrate all the spam I get from Apple and others from my real email. I can do this with Smart Mailboxes or Rules (move to mailbox). What is the difference as far as results? Is there any? Advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks!

Smart Mailboxes don't have actions attatched. Basicly, a search feature showing results. You attatch certain criteria to them for what you want to see. They are useful if you have a lot of mail and want to quickly view certain criteria like a certain sender, over a certain age, etc. The messages remain in their original mailbox.
Example: message recieved greater that 365 days. Shows all messages in this criteria for the mailboxes included in the criteria. Messages can be selected and for instance, deleted from there.
Rules are applied to messages downloaded to your inbox. Rules are made for specific criteria you choose, and then you create an action for those messages in that rule.
Example: Criteria-Message from people in my address book ** Action- Set font color to blue. Any message downloaded to your inbox from people in your address book will have a blue font color.
If you choose a move action, then the message will be actually moved from the inbox to whatever you specify.
You can create a rule and look at the criteria you can set and the actions you can perform.

How can I get a view of what's not in any smart mailbox?

I want to see basically my inbox, only with all of the things being displayed in my smart mailboxes HIDDEN. I don't see an option for this. I tried creating a smart inbox, but there's no way to create the inverse of my smart mailboxes because the rules don't seem to allow it. Is there any way to do this or am I out of luck?
Thanks,
Jon

Thanks. Yeah, smart mailboxes being sort of filtered views of your INBOX makes good sense (references not copies as you say).
I could do what I want to do if there was either an option to hide stuff in the inbox that's in a smart mailbox OR if there were better smart mailbox rules for what to include. For example, if there was a "None" choice as well as "Any" and "All", I could create an Inbox2 that contains all the stuff that doesn't match any of the criteria for my other smart mailboxes. But it's not quite the smart. Also, I could make it work if you could include smart mailboxes in the rules themselves, but they only work with regular mailboxes. I can understand why that would not be a feature though.
Basically, smart mailboxes are great. BUT I want to use them to reduce the clutter of my inbox, not just see a view of it. So perhaps this is a feature request. I can't see how to do what I want to do...

How can I convert an ordinary Mail mailbox to a smart mailbox?

I have a large number of maiboxes all for the one account in Mail. I would like to get rid of them, preferably by changing them into smart mailboxes with the same criteria. The only way I can think of doing this is by deleting the mailboxes after moving the messages out of them then creating new smart mailboxes. That could take a very long time. Is there a way of doing this that is quicker and better? Apple Script? Automator? I don't know much about either of those, just that they exist and some programs have scripts that you can run. Grateful for assistance.

AppleScript <--------- CLICKY CLICK
You can cross post there if you want to do a script for what you want to do w/your Mail. You will NOT be violating Apple's TOU. The experts there will provide you w/detailed instructions.

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.

Mailbox vs. smart mailbox - advantages?

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