Rules apply oddly to drafts

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Level 1

35 points

Rules apply oddly to drafts

I have a simple rule set up that changes the color of the text of emails from people who I know (people in my Address Book or in my Previous Recipients list) to a deep blue. (I've labeled it "Recognized Sender".) The blue is dark, so it is easy to read, but the color distinguishes it from regular black text. This works great in all my mailboxes, except Drafts.

In Drafts, after I edit and save a draft, it changes the color of the background to this dark blue color. Unfortunately, the text stays black, the background turns this dark blue, and it is impossible to read Name, Subject, Last Saved, etc. as there is little contrast. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to come from a direct interpretation of the "Recognized Sender" rule because when I go to my Drafts folder, highlight all the Drafts and then select Message > Apply Rules, then Mail eliminates the blue background color and reinstates the blue text (against a regular white background). However, as soon as I edit and save one of those drafts, the blue background color returns for that draft.

Now, I suppose I could eliminate the rule entirely - but the distinction between senders I know and those I don't is helpful. I could also make the blue a lighter shade, so that when it becomes a background, there is more contrast behind the black text, but I like the dark shade of blue.

I don't know why Mail mangles this rule in my Drafts folder when it works perfectly well in all other folders. Nor do I know why it applies the rule correctly when I select the messages and ask it to Apply Rules, but then reverts to its bad habits every time I edit and re-save those drafts.

Does anyone have any ideas about how to eliminate this behavior?

Thank you,

Erik

MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jul 10, 2008 3:04 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 10, 2008 3:26 PM in response to Erik Singer

What is the rule?
Have you other rules?

AK

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Answer 2

Erik Singer Author

Level 1

35 points

Jul 10, 2008 3:46 PM in response to Austin Kinsella1

The Rule reads:

If "any" of the following conditions are met:
"Sender is in my address book"
"Sender is in my Previous Recipients"

Perform the following actions:
"Set Color" "of text" "other (I selected a dark Blue color from the palette)"

I have two other rules: one moves Junk to my Junk mailbox and sets the color to a shade of brown and the other changes the background color of Notes.

That's all I have. Thank you.

Message was edited by: Erik Singer

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Answer 3

Jul 10, 2008 4:28 PM in response to Erik Singer

Mail applies rules to incoming messages automatically. It does not apply them, as far as I know, to drafts or outgoing messages - this is something you must do yourself, as indeed you say you do from time to time. From what you describe, it doesn't sound like a rule problem at all - 'cos when you apply the rules manually to Drafts, they work as expected.

Try turning off rules, then save a message in Drafts and see what happens.

As a matter of interest, why save so many messages in drafts anyway? I rarely use it.

Also, why have a rule that emulates the behaviour of the built-in junk rule? Just enable move to junk in the junk preferences.

AK

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Answer 4

Erik Singer Author

Level 1

35 points

Jul 11, 2008 8:39 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

It appears that Mail does apply Rules to Drafts automatically. With Rules turned on, all my drafts have blue text. Without them, it reverts to the default black text. Until attempting to trouble-shoot this issue now, I had never applied Rules manually.

After turning the rules off, any new message that I compose and save to Drafts does not have any color associated with it. Just black text on a white background. Drafts that were already in my Drafts folder prior to turning off Rules, still exhibit the same behavior. They get the dark blue background when I edit and re-save them. The only difference now is nothing happens when I select "Message > Apply Rules" (since Rules are turned off, there are no "rules" to apply - though the draft messages that had been previously colored by my rule remained colored).

I actually use Drafts all the time. Perhaps I only have time to write part of an email and want to wait until it's complete or until I've thought further about it before sending - it's saved me from sending many an email in anger/frustration until I revisited it with a cooler head. 🙂 Or I'm waiting on information regarding part of my response from another person or I have further research yet to do, or I'm writing a long response and want to save it midway through in case of data loss, or something jumps to the fore, interrupting a message that I'm writing, and I'll need to return to it later. Or, like this response, I'm composing it in Mail for later pasting to the forum because I don't have time to remember why I create the extra Junk rule, but will by tomorrow when I finish this post. Or sometimes, just to clear up my Inbox of things that don't require immediate attention, but that might get lost in the clutter of the Inbox, I'll hit "Reply" and save to Drafts and then it's waiting for me as a reminder when I have the time. Or maybe something - like a birthday wish - doesn't go out until tomorrow, but I feel like composing it now; I can do so and then save it to Drafts to send later. I also used to use it like Notes is used now, but then I think Apple found a lot of people doing that and added Notes. Those are just off the top of my head. I find Drafts to be indispensable. I guess they just fit my work style.

As for the extra Junk rule, I'm still not remembering exactly why I set it up. It was when I first switched from Eudora to Mail, so it was awhile ago. I think it may have been because Mail was not moving Junk to my Junk mailbox properly (even though I've always selected the radio button for "Move it to the Junk mailbox"). Either that, or the default color that Mail uses for Junk was too light a shade of brown and I wasn't getting the custom/advanced options to work the way I wanted them to, so I just made my own rule. I can't remember the reasoning at this point. I'll turn off that rule and see if Mail handles Junk properly for me without it.

Thank you,

Erik

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