Mail Considers IMAP Spam Folder Unread Count for Inbox Unread

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Mail Considers IMAP Spam Folder Unread Count for Inbox Unread

Using the unified Inbox in Mail, an IMAP account that receives spam into its Spam folder (which Mail recognizes as a Junk folder) gets counted as unread. To explain:

Then, take a look at the Inbox. It shows two unread messages, but the inbox itself, in fact, all inboxes, have no unread messages.

Mail is treating new messages in Junk as unread Inbox. Is there a way to stop this? It only seems to happen with one of my IMAP accounts, and not with Gmail.

Thanks.

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 22, 2020 12:36 PM

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Answer 1

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Apr 23, 2020 6:50 PM in response to umparrothead

Hello umparrothead,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. It sounds like one of your mailboxes is including Junk in your “Unread” count. I’m happy to provide some information.

What you’re describing is expected behavior. To prevent this from happening. You have the option to set a rule to mark your Junk as “read” when it’s received.

You can do so by following the steps in the article below:

Change Junk Mail Advanced settings in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Have a great day.

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Answer 2

umparrothead Author

Level 3

807 points

Apr 24, 2020 10:36 AM in response to CarlAVII

Thanks. I made the change, though it was not like that in High Sierra, and only my work IMAP account does it, not the Gmail IMAP account (Junk e-mails from Gmail in the folder were unread and did not contribute to the Inbox label). Still seems like a bug, because the behavior is inconsistent.

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Answer 3

umparrothead Author

Level 3

807 points

Apr 24, 2020 12:32 PM in response to umparrothead

Update: Mail ignores my custom rule for setting messages to read in Junk folder. It just...doesn't. Since the message is already moved from Inbox into the IMAP spam folder, the label shouldn't remain.

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Mail Considers IMAP Spam Folder Unread Count for Inbox Unread

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