Smart mailbox pretty dumb.

I tried to create a smart mailbox several times. I thought a "smart" mailbox would automatically gather all email according to the criteria I gave it and take it out of my regular mailbox

screwed up forum software posted without my asking it to. Will repost.

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Smart Mailboxes empty / dumb

I'm syncing Mail over four computers using my mobileme.com. All running same version of OS 10.6.8. Periodically after I MERGE my "Mail Rules, Signatures and Smart Mailboxes" they still appear, but no longer function. When I go to edit the smart mailbox, the criteria have all disappeared and I get four blank windows. I have had to recreate smart mailboxes twice and reset sync data from one computer to mobileme to reverse sync to the other computers. The mail server is Exchange 2007. Could that have something to do with it?

I guess if you wait long enough, you can answer your own questions. I realized that at least one of my computers had an older version of Mail.app (4.4) and none of the computers were running the program in 32-bit mode. I didn't even know that was an option. However, I have since updated all versions of Mail (on 3 computers) to 4.5 and am running them all in 32-bit mode. This has fixed the mysterious empty smart mailboxes problem. In short, my smart mailboxes are, once again, my friend!

Mavericks Mail: Cannot exclude meeting.ics attachments from Smart Mailbox

I'm trying to set up a smart mailbox in Mail (Mavericks 10.9.2) that searches for all email containing attachments, but excludes all meeting invitations (attachments with name = meeting.ics). Sounds simple, but I cannot figure out how to do it.
I've got two filters in the smart mailbox:
Contains Attachments
Any attachment name > does not contain > meeting.ics
Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong and how to fix this?

Tried all the fixes described.
Mac User for >23 years.
More than 30 Macs all types purchased
Never had such a problem as with mail in mavericks.
What a disaster!
First time I have complained about an apple product.
Fix this ASAP.
Pretty please!

New Smart Mailboxes Disappear (again & again)

There are two smart mailboxes setup in the "Mail" application on my desktop Mac ("All Mail" & "Newspaper"). These mailboxes also exist on my laptop. On my desktop, I deleted the "Newspaper" mail box and created several new smart mailboxes. The next time I looked, the new mailboxes "self-deleted" and restored the "Newspaper" mailbox. I tried this several times with the same result. I then created a new smart mailbox on the laptop and deleted the "newspaper" mail box. Same thing happed; the new mailbox disappears and ther "newspaper" mailbox returns.
I use use IMAP with my Gmail account and forward my "iCloud" mail to my Gmail account. The "Mail" setting is "checked" in my iCloud system settings (but not sure what impact that has on my setup).   I thought this setting may allow the smart mailboxes to synchronize between the Mac and possibly my iPhone. I am using OS X 10.9.3. I recently returned to mac "Mail" after several years of simply using the Gmail web interface on the Mac (plus iOS Mail) and am a bit unclear how the iCloud sync should work. I am pretty happy with the newer IMAP capabilities after using POP in the past.
Any suggestions on how I can create (and keep) my smart mailboxes?
Thanks,
Dave

WHAT DIDNT WORK for me:
I have the problem, but I never had Docs & Data switched on, so Sheppard's solution does not apply for my case (there are no such files as mentioned there). Neither did Beda's move work for me. Causing fresh copies of the two files he mentioned to be created does bring back the Smart Mailbox category and a default Today smart mailbox, but putting the original files back in position, puts the problem back to square one -- no smartmailboxes appear.
WHAT DID WORK for me:
What I found worked was moving smartmailbox specifications from SmartMailboxes.plist into a clean SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist file.
Steps: (This procedure requires something that enables you to open and edit plist files (e.g. Xcode). As always, keep safeties of everything before you mess around.)
0) Before starting, check this file and confirm your smart mailbox specifications are actually still in there. If not, this won't work.
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SmartMailboxes.plist
1) Taking a tip from Beda, move the following files out and then launch Mail and quit it, to force creation of new copies of these files.
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SmartMailboxesLocalProperties.plist
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist
2 ) Open the new SyncedMailboxes.plist. It contains a single item (a default Today smartmailbox specification). Delete that.
3) Open your SmartMailboxes.plist. It contains a sublist called 'mailboxes' where all your smart mailbox specifications reside. Copy each of these items over to (the top level of) SyncedMailboxes.plist. You have to do this one at a time if you are using Xcode, because there is no multiple selection available.
4) Save and close SyncedMailboxes.plist (and close any other plists for good measure).
5) Launch Mail and your smart mailboxes should be back.
Hope it works for you as it did for me.

Follow-up Rule + smart mailbox

Hello,
I'm trying to set up a smart mailbox in which are all emails I sent but that need follow-up (they are not replied to, or I replied again and still was for reply). What I tried to do is create a rule in which every email 'from' '@my-simpatico.com' should be 'flagged'. Then I set up a smart mailbox that collects 'flagged' messages. Unfortunately it doesn't work - I don't get these messages flagged. I only get them flagged when I send to one of the email accounts which are setup in my Mac Mail. Anyone with a solution please?

ok, the following should do it (more or less).
paste the following into script editor and save it as a script.
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
tell application "Mail"
set flagged status of every message of sent mailbox whose date sent is greater than (current date) - 5* minutes to true
end tell</pre>
then download and install [cronnix|http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html] and set it to run this script every 5 minutes. The script is pretty self explanatory I hope. you can adjust the number 5 as you like. It will work ok so log as you don't unflag messages too quickly. If you do they might get reflagged when the script runs next time.
P.S. Actually, use [lingon|http://lingon.sourceforge.net> rather than cronnix to schedule it.
you can save the script either as an application (in this case simply drag it to line 2 in lingon) or as a script. in this case line 2 in should look like this:
osascript path/to/script
where path/to/script is the full path to your script.
Message was edited by: V.K.

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.

Creating Smart Mailbox Folders in Mail.app (Lion): they do not save and disappear every time the application closes....

Hello there -
Hopefully someone can help, because this is just frustrating and weird. In Mail on Mac OSX Lion, I can create all the Smart Mailboxes I want, but if I try to create a Smart Mailbox folder, it shows up just fine in the sidebar. But, as soon as I close Mail, then re-open, the Smart Mailbox Folder is gone as if it never existed. This happens whether or not I actually put any Smart Mailboxes in the folder. Anyone else seen this issue and have suggestions?

Okay, I think I just discoverd a workaround. This will work if you're lucky enough to already have a smart-mailbox folder that persists after close. (Somehow I had two such folders that already existed and weren't subject to the mysterious disappearances on closing the app; perhaps I created them in a previous OS X release?) Anyway, here goes:
Locate an already existing smart mailbox folder that's working properly. Select the folder (in the sidebar).
Duplicate that folder using the "Duplicate Smart Mailbox" Command. (It's on the contextual pop-up menu or available via the gear icon in the lower left of the window). This should produce and exact copy of the folder and the boxes inside, appearing at the bottom of the smart mailbox list.
Edit the duplicate folder to put the smart mailboxes you want in it, and delete the previous mailboxes (duplicates) that you don't want.
The new folder structure should now persist between launches of the app.
There you go. Not the most elegant process, but workable. Don't know if there's a method if you don't have at least one smart mailbox folder already though.

Lost Mail in Smart Mailbox

I tried to edit a Smart Mailbox and lost all my mail in the smart mailbox when I hit the "-" to remove a double entry. The original entry remained and I added another entry and also I reentered the one I had removed. However, nothing now appears in that Smart Mailbox although there are message in the Inbox that meet the criteria.
Is there any way to recover my lost mail in the Smart Mailbox and how do I get the messages into it that are in Inbox?
Thanks.

You didn't lose the mail by doing this, you understand. A Smart Mailbox is like Smart Folder in Finder. It just shows you all mail that matches a set of requirements.
At this point you just need to think it through and re-enter the Smart Mailbox requirements (being careful about the "that match ALL" and "that match ANY").
Fred

Upgraded from 10.4.11 to 10.5.8 and lost mail in several Smart Mailboxes

I upgraded from 10.4.11 to 10.5.8. Several of my Smart Mail Boxes lost all email content but others remained in tact. Now the ones that lost content don't accept emails that meet the criteria for the Smart Box.
Anyone have that experience? Any ideas on recapturing? I didn't back up my mail prior to upgrade.

Welcome to the Discussion,
Smart Mailboxes are only virtual mailboxes, and contain nothing -- they are the product of a search list, and messages must stay in their original mailboxes. All the messages will still in the originating mailboxes, unless something else you did impacted those actual mailboxes, so you should be able to rewrite the definitions for these Smart Mailboxes.
Ernie

I need to transfer the Smart Mailboxes I have set up on one computer to another computer. Both are running 10.8.4 and Mail 6.3. None of the old solutions are viable since there is no longer a 'Mail' folder in the User account.

I acquired a new iMac, and need to transfer the Smart Mialboxes I have set up on my Mac Pro to the iMac. Mail is already set up to sync thorough iCloud, but the Smart mailboxes are - apparently - set up for individual machines. The only solutions I have been able to locate involve moving Preference files from one machine to the other; the problem is that there is no longer a 'Mail' folder set up for individual Users (actually there is no Mail folder at ALL under 10.8.4), and I am unable to locate any .plist files for Mail at all. Any idea how to make this haoppen?

Create a new smart mailbox. Does it sync? If not, do as below.
Back up all data.
1. Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/Bundles
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu. A folder may open, or you may get an error message that the item can't be found. Either result is normal. If the folder does open and has contents, move the contents to the Desktop. Relaunch Mail and test. If there's no change, put the contents of the folder back and quit Mail again.
2. Repeat with this line:
/Library/Mail/Bundles
This time you may be prompted for your login password when you remove the items. Make sure they're removed from the folder and not just copied to the Desktop. If necessary, copy them first and then move the originals to the Trash.

Is there any way to have a smart mailbox search sub-folders

My wife uses Mail.app for her business in which gets hundreds of emails a day and managing them all is quite a challenge. One important goal of e-mail management is archiving certain emails in folders (and sub-folders) without creating duplicates. What I've done is to create rules to move e-mails into their respective the folders and flag them based varying criteria. This works great!
The problem is when I make a smart mailbox to include only flagged messages in a specific mailbox, only messages in the root mailbox are found. All messages in the sub-folder are ignored or never considered. I used the "not in mailbox" option on my own mail.app but this isn't practical for her because she manages numerous e-mail accounts for clients and she adds new accounts frequently.
Is there a solution to my issue that doesn't involve puting all the messages into the root mailbox?

Mine are showing emails in subfolders, but I don't have near that many emails.
Maybe you need to reindex the spotlight database.
The normal method is to add the Hard drive to the Privacy tab in Spotlight prefs. If that doesn't cause it to index, here is a Terminal way: http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_reindex_spotlight

Is there a way to create a Smart Mailbox that shows Sent emails only?

Hi there,
I am trying to find a way to create a smart mailbox that only shows emails I have sent.
If I receive 20 emails today, 10 yesterday say, I have a Smart MB where I have set up emails received today, another SMB for emails received yesterday and another SMB for emails I've received in the past week. I can very easily see what has come in during the last few days or whatever.
What I also have are rules that move all emails received and sent to specific folders. The idea is that I will have nothing in my INBOX. The problem is that although it's easy to set up views to see what emails I've received on any day using the calendar option, I can't see a way of doing this to see what emails I've sent.
So, if I receive 20 emails today and I replied to 3 of them, those 3 will get sent to whatever folder I've allocated for them - I put all emails TO/FROM in one folder for each email address. This way I don't have 2 email folders TO and SENT for each recipient.
My problem is that I want to ONLY look at what I've sent today or maybe yesterday etc. if I can set things up the same way as receiving emails, But I can't seem to do this.
Seems strange that there are options to see filter out what's coming in but not what is being sent! But if there's a way to do this, it would be appreciated.
Regards,
Maz

Mail creates a Sent mail folder automatically when you set up an account. All your sent mails are kept there. You configure how it saves your sent mail here:
You should see the mailbox in Mail's sidebar:

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.

Smart mailbox pretty dumb.

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