Writing a Mail.app rule to say “do not download from server”

emailmail.app

I have a POP based mail account from my ISP.

What I need is a way to say "If the Subject contains XXX then do not download it from the server".
This was simple in Windows Mail, but there doesn't appear to be this rule action in mail.app

Any ideas?

(I guess something to say, leave it on the server, and delete it from my inbox" might also be appropriate).

EDIT: Is there really no alternative solution to this? Even with a mail plugin?

Perhaps I should rephrase:

I need a way to not leave certain messages on the POP server.

Best Answer

Mail.app rules cannot run on mail they do not have. That is to say- a rule cannot be applied to a message that doesn't exist. Mail.app must download the email in order to parse it in order to run the rule against it.

Now, that said. If you're dealing with a POP server situation where Mail.app is configured to not delete anything from the server - it should still delete messages you explicitly delete.

Get into your Mail.app prefs, accounts. Select the account in question, and go to the Mailbox Behaviours tab. Check the 'Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox' checkbox. Now when you delete something, it'll go to the trash. Yipee. I prefer never to have Mail.app delete something itself so mine is set to "never", but you could set it to automatically empty the trash at whatever interval you like.

Now - if you set up your rule, whatever emails are downloaded onto your computer and match the rule will be deleted right away. Or at least moved to the trash and deleted at your next interval.

I think when you talk about your PC experience you're talking about Outlook + Exchange, which has a unique feature where you can have the rules actually live on the exchange server and are executed there, rather than on your local computer. Is this supported by Mail.app on a Mac? No, not that I know of.

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IPhone – ny way to get a pop-up notification on the iPhone or iPad when mail arrives

With the release of iOS 5 mail can now appera as a pop up box style notifacation.

Goto Settings>Notifications>Mail> the choose "Alerts" in the alert style menu.

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you will then have something that looks like a message notification when an email arrives

MacOS – how to auto download a certain attachment in mail

This is an edited version — quite possibly not the best one — of the script shown in this answer to the Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion thread, I've tested it and it works:

using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        tell application "Mail"
            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
                repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments
                    set attachmentName to name of theAttachment
                    if attachmentName is "blank expense report" then
                        set savePath to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox:" & attachmentName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                            on error err
                            display display "The Following Error Occurred:" & err
                        end try
                    end if
                end repeat
            end repeat
        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

This script will save the attachment named "blank expense report" in a named "Inbox" at Machintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox. Be sure to change the value of savePath variable accordingly to your needs.

Best Answer

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IPhone – ny way to get a pop-up notification on the iPhone or iPad when mail arrives

MacOS – how to auto download a certain attachment in mail

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