Is There A Way to Mark Spam as "READ" ?

Setup a rule in your prefs.

PS,

You will have to set up separate rules to catch the spam that is coming into your mail account(s).

For instance, if you are getting spam from Viagra purveyor, you must say something like:

If any>Message Content>Contains>viagra... Perform the following actions: >Delete Message

or

If any>Subject>Contains>Credit Scoring... Perform the following actions: > Delete Message

or

If any>From>Contains>Sony Rewards... Perform the following actions: >Set color of message>Move Message to Trash

These are just examples of rules that can be constructed, and you will have to build them by trial and error to fit your needs.

You can even get rid of alternate language mail by inserting some of the more common letters used in the language into a rule like: ê, ç

Building rules is kinda like a seek and destroy mission. You will have to look for the things that make +that sender+ or +those messages+ unique and then build the "Silver Bullet" to kill it. Actually it can be rather entertaining. Oh, and don't forget that Bounce button if you have it on your tool bar. I have used it over the past couple of years and have noticed a fairly good drop-off of spam.

Good Luck,

John

Actually to specifically address your problem, create a rule that looks like this:

If Any>Message is Junk Mail>Perform the following actions>Mark as Read + Move Message to mailbox> +then create a new mailbox just for those messages.+

This way you can access them any time and do as you wish individually. (or you could just direct them to the Trash)

John

driver49 wrote:
Gee, that's helpful...

What should this new "rule" say?

I tried creating one that would mark "junk" mail as read, but not everything that goes into the spam folder is also "junk," though I have no idea how Apple Mail draws the distinction.

mail doesn't draw a distinction. It only has "Junk". Spam is something set up by your IMAP server and it does spam filtering before Mail sees it.
I'm not sure how to do it using rules but you can add an apple script to some mail rule you have or just make a new mail rule that applies to all messages and runs the following apple 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 read status of every message of mailbox "name of spam mailbox" of account "name of your imap account" to true
end tell</pre>

Paste the above into Script Editor and save it somewhere out of sight.
Put the correct names in the above script. KEEP the quotes.

I had the same problem as the original poster, and your answer V.K. works like a charm. Thank you!