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!

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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.

Smart mailbox emails are empty

I created a couple of Smart Mailboxes and when I click on many of the emails in the folders, they are empty.
When I go to the same emails in the InBox all the inforamtion can be seen.
What am I missing?
Thanks.

Hi Cliff,
I haven't tried this on 10.6.x yet, so not certain, but this can fix myriad Mail problems in 10.4.x/10.5.x...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), it will try to repair your Disk Directory while the spinning radian is happening, so let it go, run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then move this folder & file to the Desktop.
Move this Folder to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/
Move this file to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
Reboot.
If that doesn't do it and you can afford to redo all your Rules, try these & reboot...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist.backup

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.

Smart Mailbox rules broken in 10.9

Ever since installing Mavericks, one of my Smart mailbox which shows emails in the last week with a Rule:
Date received, is this week
shows an empty mailbox.
Is this a known bug? There's lots of discussion around the GMail bugs, but this is a different issue.
Adam

Same problem here and this was working great with other versions.

Mail: ANY doesn't work in smart mailboxes or rules?

I want to create a smart mailbox that will copy and archive all messages to/from a particular recipient and e-mails to/from others about the subject of most of the conversation with that recipient. I want the archiving to happen as they arrive in my inboxes and not automatically remove them from the servers--some I still need on the servers to access from multiple locations/machines.
But I can't even get to the archiving issue: the smart mailbox that says 'contains ANY message' meeting these rules:
contains recipient1
contains subject2
always has fewer messages than one that simply 'contains recipient1' so the ANY condition, that in boolean terms should be an OR combination, appears to functionally act as an AND.
When I tried to create a smart mailbox folder to contain two mailboxes, one for contains name1 and one for contains subject2, each of which separately works fine, clicking the smart mailbox folder containing both leaves the window empty, so I can't see the messages name1 and subject2 interlaced in the date sent order or any other. I just get one group or the other by clicking the submailboxes.
And trying to bypass the problem using rules doesn't work either--the 'any' command is as dysfunctional there as it is in the smart mailbox dialog. I can manually search for the relevant terms (recipient1 and subject2) and option+drag them to a mailbox for archiving, but this results in many duplications, especially if repeated over time, not a happy result.
Some searching here and googling suggests that the ANY command is problematic in this OS for a lot of people, but is there a known fix? Or a better way to create a 'smart' archive to do what I want?

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.

Smart mailboxes not working after latest update

My smart mailboxes are all showing empty, including one whose entire duty is to show unread mail.
How do I restore their functionality? I did the index build but from what I can tell that does not affect smart mailboxes.

Thanks for your suggestion, it has solved my difficulty. For informational purposes I will publish my post and the solution in hopes it will assist others.
I am running Final Cut Pro 6.0.5. My Sony SR12's drive is recognized during the Log And Transfer process. The problems continue. All of the thumbnails have a grayish/brown band going right through the middle of each one. I am able to play the clip in the Log and Transfer window but as soon as I attempt to drag the clip to the media box, FCP crashes. I had this same problem with iMovie 7 and found that updating to the latest version solved the problem. In this case however, FCP 6.0.5 is the latest version. I have the same problem with Final Cut Pro Express 4.0.1 but again, not with iMovie 7.1.4. I loaded Sony’s XDCAM software as well just in case but it did not do anything to help the situation.
When I trashed the Perian component along with QuickTime preferences it did the trick. I believe it was the old version of Perian causing the conflict with Final Cut Pro’s Log and Transfer option, not the Quick Time preferences. When I installed the newest version of Perian which is 1.1.3 there didn’t seem to be any conflict and the HD clips from my Sony SR12 imported fine with no further crashes.
MacBook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro 6.0.5

Smart folder seems dumb

Maybe it's me...
I've tried entering every possible variation of subject line into a smart folder in Mail, to move messages from a certain email discussion list to that folder. Nevertheless, many messages, seemingly described accurately in the smart folder's inclusion criteria, don't make it to the smart folder.
Is this a known issue?
The larger problem is that the filter for the smart folder doesn't seem to have a "reply to" criterion. Some email discussion lists are best identified by their reply-to addresses.
Am I overlooking something? Suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Tim
533 mhz dual CPU G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I just complain on support forums to fill up my
otherwise empty life.
The email address is always the same, but the recipient's
name is inconsistent, depending on how the user enters it.
I don't fully understand this. What does being inconsistent mean here? If participants must send their messages to [email protected], there is no way to be inconsistent about that. Unless the list server suppresses that address from the headers, then a single condition specifying [Any Recipient] [Contains] use-revolution (or [Any Recipient] [Contains] lists.runrev.com) should work...
No matter how I enter the "any recipient" field, many
messages stay in the in box instead of getting sent
to the smart folder.
Well, they shouldn't be sent to the smart mailbox, but they should definitely appear there...
It doesn't seem like so many similar criteria should
be necessary.
Agreed. A single condition is all that should be needed. I don't understand why it doesn't work for you.
Even when "any recipient" meets one or more of these
criteria, the message often remains in the in basket.
The messages shouldn't remain in the Inbox often. They should remain there always. That's how smart mailboxes work.
Some messages do get picked up by the smart folder.
Others don't. I don't see a pattern.
Could this be a Spotlight issue?
Maybe if I could get the smart folder to work right,
the "reply to" criterion would be irrelevant.
I think so.
I tried a smart folder instead of a filter. I thought
it would be easier. Maybe smart folders and filters
use different mechanisms. I haven't tried to do the
same thing with a filter yet.
Not only do they use different mechanisms (smart folders use Spotlight, whereas rules do not), but they serve different purposes as well. I you do actually want your messages to be moved out of the Inbox and into their own mailbox, that's what rules are for -- and they allow you to to specify arbitrary headers in the conditions.

Smart mailbox

I would like to use a smart mail box to gather all email to and from a particular person but I can't seem to do that as it asked for too much info to make this happen. Is it possible to do this or do I have to do it manually by say searching and moving it into a folder I create? It would seem it is possible to do it with a smart mailbox but when I get to the empty space accross from the contains pull down menu I am expected to enter in some paramater and I don't want to. Is there a way to simplify this?
BF

Note the + sign on the far right side of the row. That will let you select another field to search from. As it is currently setup, all e-mail addresses with the text "film" in their name will be chosen, once you give the mailbox a name. A common misconception about Smart mailboxes and Smart folders in Macs is that they are folders. They are not. They are a group of search results and nothing more. You can drag out of them individual items and put them in an actual folder, but you can't drag anything into them!

Unread messages count is wont for Smart Mailbox

Has anyone else noticed that a smart mailbox has a non-zero unread message count but as soon as it is clicked on the count is reset to zero? Zero is correct because all of the messages have been read. I've tried rebuilding the inbox but it hasn't helped. I also recreated the smart mailbox but that didn't help either. Sounds like a bug to me but I wonder if others have experienced it. I am using Mail Tags so that is a possible complication.

Same problem here with Yahoo mail. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I have looked at Yahoo mail from all folders in my phone (running 7.0.3 now), as well as in a browser, looked at Inbox (empty), all Trash, Sent, etc. folders and they're completely empty on Yahoo servers.
I thought that 7.0.3 had initially cleared up this issue but it has reappeared, and I don't know how to fix it.

Mail VIP list not showing "all VIPs" or useable in Smart mailboxes

Hi there,
I thought I'd give the Mail app a go again in Yosemite after abandoning it when it all went horribly wrong in Mavericks.
I can't get the VIP list to work properly though. I have VIPs and I can open the VIP list to select an individual VIP (I have about 50) but I want to click on the main VIPs label to see mails from all VIPs. Specifically, I want to limit to the view to Inbox Only, so I can see all messages from any VIP that is currently in my inbox. The problem is, no mail shows when clicking on the main VIPs label, only when I click on individual VIP names. Also, if I create a Smart mailbox, using Sender is VIP, nothing works (no mails are found). I can still select multiple individual VIPs out of the list and that will show them all, but it's a pain and just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. in iOS, tapping on the VIP inbox, lists all mails from VIPs, why not on the mac too?
Anyone else having the same problems?
As a further clue. When you click on one mail box to another, the list of mails instantly changes to show the mails in the new mailbox. This is true if you click from an individual mailbox to the 'group' one. But, if I click from any mail box (that is showing mail) to the mail VIPs group, then the mails from the previous mailbox are still shown, ie the view doesn't re-fresh. I have to click on the main VIPs tab twice to get the mail list to refresh (which then refreshes to an empty list due to the problem above).
This is driving me mad!

I have worked this out for myself and fixed the problem.
It's down to a bug in Mail (or possibly Spotlight). I had a VIP with an apostrophe in her email address which Mail wasn't handling properly and it was causing the search query to fail. Removing that contact from the VIP list fixed my issue.
Technically, what's happening is that the code wasn't "escaping" this special character and that was causing a syntax error in the search query.

Find mail sent today smart mailbox

How do I make a smart mailbox for emails sent today? I see the find parameter of received today, but nothing for sent today.

This worked for me. You may have to set up something to empty the box daily.

Smart Mailboxes Criteria- Need More Location Options

In the domain I use (let's call it blank.com), I figured out that spammers send a lot of spam to specific addresses - specifically [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc.
I set up a smart mailbox that listed about 10 of these zombie addresses that are all spam and the joining conjunction in the smart mailbox coding is ANY. The issue is this: Is it possible to restrict my search criteria to specific locations? After I locate 100 spams in this smart mailbox and Mark as spam, they get sent to the junk folder. The problem is, unless I go into the junk folder and delete the new additions, the smart mailbox search criteria will continue to find new spam and it finds the old spam that is now in the junk folder.
Ideally, I would be able to have a rule that looks for ANY of these:
recipient includes [email protected] in the folder Inbox
recipient includes [email protected] in the folder Inbox
recipient includes [email protected] in the folder Inbox
But I don't think I can do this, or can it?

Well, syncing does not just work.
I reset my sync data. I got another set of smart mailboxes, all with empty fields. And a new smart mailbox that I had created just for the test on that mac disappeared. I expected this, as it was set to sync. But the sync produced only smart boxes with empty criteria again.
I also unregistered a mac that did not work. And then reregistered it. And synced it. And again, I only got empty fields in the criteria, and 2 sets of smart boxes.
So I went to "~/Library/Mail/SmartMailboxes.plist" and moved that plist to the unsyncable mac. And now I have working smart mailboxes again.
I don't know why the sync does not work. Or when it happened. I will keep watch.

Missing Smart Mailbox and VIP Emails - Post Yosemite Upgrade

Good day,
Hoping for a little help. After the Yosemite and Mail upgrades I have the following issues:
1) Smart Mailboxes are empty and do not contain message that were there pre-upgrade
2) VIP email messages are also not showing up
3) Search for email messages is no longer working
Would love some assistance please.
Thanks.

Have you tried re-creating Photoshop preferences:
To re-create the preferences files for Photoshop, start the application while holding down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS). Then, click Yes to the message, "Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file?"
Note: If this process doesn't work for you while you're using a wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard, attach a wired keyboard and retry.
Important: If you re-create the preferences by manually deleting the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Settings file, make sure that you only delete that file. If you delete the entire settings folder, you also delete any unsaved actions or presets.
Reinstalling Photoshop does not remove the preferences file. Before reinstalling Photoshop, re-create your preferences.
NEW Video! Julieanne Kost created a video that takes you through two ways of resetting your Photoshop preferences. The manual preference file removal method is between 0:00 - 5:05. The keyboard shortcut method is between 5:05 - 8:18. The video is located here:
How to Reset Photoshop CS6’s Preferences File | The Complete Picture with Julieanne Kost | Adobe TV
Mac OS
Important: Apple made the user library folder hidden by default with the release of Mac OS X 10.7. If you require access to files in the hidden library folder to perform Adobe-related troubleshooting, see How to access hidden user library files.

OSX 10.9.2 mail smart mailbox no longer work.

I have 4 smartmailboxes, unread, Today, This Week & Last Week.
They have been working fine until today. Now they remain empty no matter what.
I have : deleted and recreated the smart mailboxes
             deleted and recreated the email accounts - one by one (there is an iCloud account + an Exchnage account)
              created a new user and setup both accounts individually, each time creating new smartmailboxes
              deleted the accounts and tried an alternative iCloud account, again creating a new smartmailbox
Nothing I do gets the smartmailboxes to function. They remain empty no matter what I do.
OS X 10.9.2 (13C64)
Mail Version 7.2 (1874)
Mac Mini 5,2 8 i7 , 8 gig   Boot= 240gig SSD 103gig free 2nd drive = 480 gig SSD 300gig free

Java SE Runtime Environment 7 1.7.0_51

Smart Mailboxes empty / dumb

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