Automatically move messages to a mailbox in Mail.app

catalinamail.app

This in on macOS 10.15.3, Mail.app version 13.0.

I often receive marketing emails, or order updates from an online purchase, etc. which I move into different mailboxes in Mail.app. Over time, Mail.app learns which mailbox I usually move these kind of messages to. In my MacBook Pro 15" with touch bar, it even shows a 'Move to "SOME MAILBOX"' icon on the touch bar. On other messages which I usually leave in the inbox, it merely shows 'Move to…' without suggesting a mailbox.

Is there a way to make Mail.app automatically move these messages when they're received to the suggested mailbox, without having to manually press this icon in the touch bar?

Note: I know there's a conventional "Rules" tab in Preferences, as well as the Gmail filters feature (all my emails use Gmail). Once upon a time I had enough patience to try to set up these rules for specific senders, etc. Unfortunately, over time, these rules get obsolete as senders change the email they're sending from, and the rules need updating. It's just too much hassle so I've given up on this route. Mail.app does a great job of classifying emails with the feature mentioned above, all I'm looking for is a way to automate the process.

Best Answer

If you have a Gmail account, try going to gmail.com and making the specific senders go to a new folder. This should sync and do it on the Mail app to. I am not aware of any method to make it go to a new inbox.

Related Solutions

MacOS – 10.9 Mail “smart mailbox” doesn’t filter properly

Here are two more possible solutions.

Reset Permissions

chmod -a 'everyone deny write,delete,append,writeattr,writeextattr,chown' ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~mail/Data/MailData/* ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~mail/Data/MailData/Signatures/*

This resets permissions on email related items (you can reset permissions on everything in Disk Utility).

Remove Indexes

rm -rf ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope*
mdimport ~/Library/Mail

This second possibility gets rid of Mail's index (Mail will rebuild it upon restart) and refreshes Spotlight with your email content.

Mavericks does not delete Gmail emails

Google recommends the following configuration for Gmail on Mail.app OS X:

From the Mail menu, click Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors

Drafts:
Store draft messages on the server > leave unchecked

Sent:
Store sent messages on the server > leave unchecked

Junk:
Store junk messages on the server > checked Delete junk messages when > Never

Trash:
Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox > leave unchecked Store deleted messages on the server > leave unchecked

Also, trash gets emptied on its own on Gmail; mail older than 30 days gets deleted automatically, so other than particular workflows or because of lack of space on the server or locally, deleting mail already on the Trash folder should not be a preocupation.

I've seen tweaks and counter-suggestions from other reputable sources, I'm not linking them here because they are fairly old.

That said, Joe Kissell and others accuse Gmail of not following standard IMAP implementations –so much so that Mavericks accommodated its interaction with Gmail entirely to avoid duplication and other problems–, and that could be the source of many of the problems.

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