My smart folders aren't so smart anymore

I have installed Leopard and my mail program works fine except that all of my smart folders are empty. I have checked the folder settings and they are the same as before, and I know the emails are in there but for some reason the smart folders are not gathering them up.

I had exactly the same problem. I found that I had an inactive mail account configured. I deleted that account and it started working again. I'm not sure if it was because I had two mailboxes, or because I had one inactive. Can you guys try that out? Maybe it is because of an inactive account?
OK that worked once, but when I closed and reopened the "smart" mailbox, it disappeared again.
Message was edited by: Bud Lande

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Column view in Smart Folders

This is just a comment but does anyone agree that Smart folders would really benefit from a column view. I realise that it probably breaks some basic user interface rules (though what's the difference between using search results & an alias as a starting point? neither of them indicate the 'real' file structure) but I think that it would be really useful to be able to browse directly from this view in the finder (like you can in the save dialogue).
Also, when dragging files around in the finder in column view, it would be nice if, when moving into an alias the finder didn't jump around to show the alias's original folder-its very disorientating, and it doesn't behave in this way when you're moving through the filing system normally...
Sorry, just some bugbears..
Chris
iBook G3, 600MHZ, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hi
I see what you mean, and it's a nice idea, (I use column wiew for everything, so I'm all for it) but it would mean basically reprogramming most of the Smart Folder code.
Smart Folders aren't really folders. They are just dynamically self-updating saved spotlight searches that Finder can interact with. In short, they are just special files, not folders. To make them into folders Apple would have to make some ridiculously complicated code to make a normal folder integrate with Spotlight, so it might be a while before this gets high on their priority list.
Hope I explained something!

Disappearing Smart Folders in Mail

When I close Mail and then reopen later, I find that all my Smart Folders disappear including the Smart Mailboxes I have placed inside them. Is there someplace I can find them? Or is there a setting I need to make to prevent them from disappearing?

Found the solution on this thread

Smart Folders for Desktop Background

I'm trying to take a batch of pictures and isolate them out in a smart folder for display as rotating desktop backgrounds. I've created a Smart Folder with the criteria that results in only the files I want. Then, I attempted to add this smart folder to the Desktop pane (in System Preferences). Instead, it added the folder it sits within, and will not display the desired photos. Is a smart folder not smart enough for this use?

Thanks, just checking, but to me, that seems like a bug - the Smart Folders are promoted as "smart" replacements to folders (of course, only when working on Leopard). If they cannot accomplish tasks such as this, then they continue to be of limited use to me. Here's to hoping their usefulness rises in the Snow Leopard.

Smart Folders and Spotlight

Previous discussions on this forum regarding Spotlight's inconsistent ability to find files caused me to disable Spotlight (using Spotless) and use Easy Find to find things.
No one warned me that disabling Spotlight would interfere with smart folders. I use smart folders in Mail, iTunes and elsewhwere. At first I couldn't figure out why they weren't working right.
It is not intuitively obvious that smart folders are basically saved Spotlight searches. Participants on this forum should know.
I've re-enabled Spotlight, I force a re-index now and then, and have Easy Find ready for backup use, if Spotlight can't find something.
That way, most of the time, smart folders are correct, or nearly so.
Just my .00000002 cents worth.
Tim
533 mhz dual CPU G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I have never had any need to "save my searches". Why on earth would I want to do that?
Consider the fllowing scenario: a disabled person to be cared for, rich and varied sources of information via articles, emails and even images. Literally thousands of documents. Few are about a single subject, such as, say a particular medication, but many refer and discuss the medication inter alia. Do a search based on the name of the medicine. Save it. Everytime the medicine is mentioned in a new article or email, that gets added to that folder. Now search for Physiotherapy. Many of the same articles and emails, but in a different folder.
That's why on earth I would want to save a search. And have many such. Invaluable.
I realise that Spotlight is not for you, but for some of us it's a boon.
Regards
TD

Nested smart folders, Mail 2.0.5

Can I put Smart Folders inside of other Smart Folders in Mail or must I put them all at root level?

Yes you can. You need to create a "Smart Mailbox Folder". You will find this under the "Mailbox" menu.
You can then drag/drop Smart Mailboxes into this folder.
Paul

Smart Folders: filtering file labels by the NAME of the label

I am using Smart Folders to organize some files. Spotlight searches are quite powerful, but I'd like to know if there's more I can do with file labels.
I am using kMDItemFSLabel values to filter my smart folders, but this presents a small inconvenience: finder's kMDItemFSLabel values for the colors are not obvious (orange = 7, red = 6, yellow = 5 - which is orange higher than red? And green = 2?) and I would prefer use my own priority choice.
Can either:
Finder's values for kMDItemFSLabel associated with each color label be changed? (this sound unwise to me, however)
or
Can I use the text value I attach to each value as a sort? Say rename "red" label to "100" and "orange" to "90" and then filter by THOSE values?
Any ideas?

Thanks for your response. Yeah, I'm aware of that. The problem is that I'd like to do sort or filters with those values, but they aren't very practical. I can assign text values to each label, but I don't seem to be able to use those in sorts.
So kMDItemFSLabel > 4 yields all orange, yellow and red files. Not bad, but the fact that orange is a higher value means I have to work around this odd enumeration.
So I'd like to either: change the system values (not ideal) or find a way to filter or sort the text values I can assign to each label. Any idea if either of these are possible?

10.5.4 Smart Folders

hi all...
...is it me or do smart folders function differently from Tiger...
...I frequently used the RGB image search as I work in prepress environment and found this a great feature for searching client supplied folders before ever opening a document...
...with Tiger I only needed one smart folder and I could simply modify the path for it to search...
...in leopard i can't see this availability anymore...
...any help is greatly appreciated...
Andrew

They took away what you want to do--among a number of other changes for the worse, in terms of the user interface. Be sure you send Feedback to Apple to let them know:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
I can't think of any easy way to do what you want with the New Improved Spotlight.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Smart Folders to sort photos in my Photo Stream

Can I create Smart Folders on my iPad to sort photos in my Photo Stream?
On my iMac we use Smart Folders to sort our photos. We use Photo Stream to share photos from our iMac onto our iPad, and want to use Smart Folders.
Please help!!

Bad news I'm afraid. iCloud only keeps the last 30 days of photos. Your device will keep some old iCloud photos around - up to 1000 photos - but those ones aren't actually on iCloud any more. It's one of my pet hates about iCloud Photostream, and it has caused a lot of people to lose data. It's a very bad design decision on Apple's part.
There are file recovery programs that might be able to recover the deleted photos from your handset, but I can't remember the names of any right now. Stop using the phone completely until you can run a file recovery program to maximise the number of photos it can restore. Preferably, switch it off completely.

I have just recently bought a MacBook Air. I am looking for an email which I put into a folder on my Mac Pro. The smart folders have come across to the Air, but not the 'On my Mac' folders. Are they lost?

I have just recently bought a MacBook Air. I am looking for an email which I put into a folder on my Mac Pro. The smart folders have come across to the Air, but not the 'On my Mac' folders. Are they lost?

Are you sure that the "On My Mac" folders weren't empty? If all your mail accounts are IMAP, they may have been.

I lost the capability of using Outlook 2011 Smart Folders after my Mountain Lion 10.8.2 install

After my OS 10.8.2 upgrade from Lion 10.7.5, I noticed an immediate problem with Outlook 2011 attached to our Exchange Server. 1) I rebuild My Identity two times using the Microsoft Database Utility Program, 2) I re-Indexed my whole Hard Drive Volume using Spotlight's Privacy Feature (actually inputing the volume in the Privacy screen, then immediately removing it to start the indexing which took 24 hrs.), and 3) I removed and added back the Outlook .plist files located in both Preference Folders (Home-User) and System.
All email Smart Searches stop at the date 10/5/12 the day I finished my Mountain Lion Install. I cannot add Outlook Smart Folders as well. Is there a Mountain Lion/Outlook .plist file that was stepped on or should I export my Identity file and create a New Identity and re-import my information. It seems that that has been tried on the Microsoft Mac discussion boards and it has been ineffective at solving the functionality of Outlook 2011 after a Mountain Lion Install.
Interestingly, I have an an older mid 2009 iMac, a late 2009 Mac Mini and a mid 2010 MBP iCore7 home computers running Outlook after a Mountain Lion Install and the program works great!!! However, I only have Mail coming into the InBox on the Exchange Server and do not download any mail to the Computer Inboxes. I download emails from the Exchange Server to the Computer (Late 2009 Mac Mini) office and the Rules to move mail to "on my computer folders" work nicely. The Smart Folders in which I want to filter and view 0 Day or 1 Day old (Yesterday) emails does not function and seem to stop functioning the day I installed OS 10.8.2.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! ~DDAM

After my OS 10.8.2 upgrade from Lion 10.7.5, I noticed an immediate problem with Outlook 2011 attached to our Exchange Server. 1) I rebuild My Identity two times using the Microsoft Database Utility Program, 2) I re-Indexed my whole Hard Drive Volume using Spotlight's Privacy Feature (actually inputing the volume in the Privacy screen, then immediately removing it to start the indexing which took 24 hrs.), and 3) I removed and added back the Outlook .plist files located in both Preference Folders (Home-User) and System.
All email Smart Searches stop at the date 10/5/12 the day I finished my Mountain Lion Install. I cannot add Outlook Smart Folders as well. Is there a Mountain Lion/Outlook .plist file that was stepped on or should I export my Identity file and create a New Identity and re-import my information. It seems that that has been tried on the Microsoft Mac discussion boards and it has been ineffective at solving the functionality of Outlook 2011 after a Mountain Lion Install.
Interestingly, I have an an older mid 2009 iMac, a late 2009 Mac Mini and a mid 2010 MBP iCore7 home computers running Outlook after a Mountain Lion Install and the program works great!!! However, I only have Mail coming into the InBox on the Exchange Server and do not download any mail to the Computer Inboxes. I download emails from the Exchange Server to the Computer (Late 2009 Mac Mini) office and the Rules to move mail to "on my computer folders" work nicely. The Smart Folders in which I want to filter and view 0 Day or 1 Day old (Yesterday) emails does not function and seem to stop functioning the day I installed OS 10.8.2.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! ~DDAM

How to auto-restore Smart Folders on the dock after reboot?

So I've created a smart folder that basically gathers all the applications that I use with the Adobe Creative Suite (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.). For quick access, I drag the smart folder to the dock and I change the sort method to NAME and the view to LIST. And here's what I get as a result, which works very nicely:
http://imgur.com/EWUgm6w
The problem is, after I restrat my Mac, that smart folder on the dock gets completely messed up (the folder icon is changed and nothing pops up when I click on the icon) so I have to then delete the one that's on the dock, drag a new copy out and then change the sort and view methods to my preferences all over again. I was a bit surprised the first time I noticed this but after seeing the smart folder get messed after multiple restarts, I realized that there's something wrong.
My assumption is that the smart folder gets reprocessed on a reboot and though the original location where the smart folder is stored is fine when I go look at it, the shortcut that I place on the dock loses its functionality altogether.
I'm wondering if anyone has run into this on their end and found a good solution? If there was a script I could run when the computer started to automate the tasks that I have to do (remove old folder from dock, copy new one, change sort & view methods), that would be great -- but I don't know how to do this! Alternatively, if there's another way to achieve this pop up list without creating a folder manually and dragging 10 shortcuts into the folder, that would be great. I like the idea of keeping the list dynamic (hence the smart folders method) so that if anything changes, the updates would be reflected autmatically in the folder.

I have the same issue. Upon restarting, my two smart folders get a drawer-looking icon and don't function. I am able to right click to change settings, but nothing seems to get them to actually work.

Smart folders seems not to work with star rating. Is there a fix?

I Rate photos with a five star rating either on iPhoto or Adobe Bridge CS5. When I create a smart folder setting the search attribute to "Rating equals 5" nothing appears on the search.

Sorry,
I think I misunderstood your question. You were talking about smart folders in the Finder and not about smart albums in iPhoto, right? "Rating equals 5" does not work on any of my machines, neither in Snow leopard nor in Lion. The problem seems to be how to represent the rating in the search string. If I search for "Rating is not 5" the smart folder contains plenty of pictures, also those with a rating of five. Does anyone know how the rating is coded to be used in a search string in the Finder?

Major change to how smart folders work?

I'm an ex-PC user and one way I configured the finder to work more like how I was used to working was to color code all my folders red and the half-dozen files I work with on a daily basis green. I had smart folders for both in the Tiger sidebar and they were there all the time. In Leopard they are only there in a finder window and are in the search for area. When I am in a program and want to open a file, that search for section is no longer in the sidebar, so I have to drill down through all folders and sub-folders to find the file I want. Am I going to be limited to launching files directly from the smart folder to easily find the files I need and not open from within the application?
RR

By default when you make a Smart Folder and save it you get it saved into this folder:
"/Users/yourname/Library/Saved Searches"
If you open that folder you should see your Smart Folders. Drag them into the "Places" section of the Sidebar in your open Finder window. They will now show up in the Open dialog window of your application. Of course, you will have them listed twice in the normal Finder window: once in places, so you can see them in the Open window, and once in Search For. Jeez, don't the programmers ever have to talk to each other? Anyway, the sensible thing to do is to have other sorts of things, that you don't need access to from an application, in the Search For section--or just close that section up. This is definitely another "what were they thinking" moment.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

List view status of flagged messages in Yosemite Mail Smart Folders

I'm using Mail in Yosemite with an Exchange server. Before Yosemite, everything was fine, now I have an issue with message flag status in Smart Folders. I have a Smart Folder which is my "ongoing" mail folder; it is set to only show unread and/or flagged messages. In the latest version of Mail, setting the messages flagged status does not change the flag icon in the message list, but does in the header of the actual mail message. The only way to get the flag to show up in the list is to select another folder and then reselect the smart folder. It does this on both my MacBook Pro and iMac, with with the latest Yosemite version and all updates applied.
In the previous OS X Mail (Mavericks) changing the flag status would remove/add the flag icon in the message list pane; now it doesn't. It's insanely annoying.
Anyone else seen this bug? I have tried recreating the smart folder and that makes no difference, neither has rebuilding the mailbox/deleting index/envelope file. No changes have been made to our Exchange server.
Cheers
Matthew

Well, I guess those are more "smart inboxes" and not "smart mailboxes" in iOS...

My smart folders aren't so smart anymore

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