Apple mail rules dont run automatically.

I found a solution that worked for me. After a lot of investigation, this is how it works when you have a Gmail acct but are using Apple's Mail on your iMac (or iOS device) to manage your email.

1. When someone sends you an email it goes to Googles mail servers first
2. Then Google applies their own filters before sending it to you. I don't mean filters you set up in your Gmail acct on line, I mean Google does this automatically whether you want them to or not. By the time the email gets into your iMac, it has already been filtered by Google (I can imagine other email providers do the same). I tried teaching Gmail that these particular spam emails were not spam by marking them NOT SPAM, didn't work.
3. When the Spam email hits my iMac, it has already been labeled as Spam by Google and therefore since I have an iMap email acct, it goes into Apple Mail's Junk folder automatically and you cannot apply Apple Mail rules to emails in the Junk folder.
4. So I went out to my Google acct online, went to All Settings (little gear icon in the upper right of the screen, clicked it and then down an inch or so you will see the All Settings link) and under their Filters and Blocked Address tab, I created a filter that said Never send any email to Spam.
5. Then, no matter what Google's filters label my email, it would come into my iMac's Inbox and not the Junk folder
6. Then I went into Apple Mail's preferences and created a rule that told it to Forward messages that come from certain addresses to an email address I entered, then delete that msg. This is working like I want it to
7. You do not see the spam email in the Inbox because as soon as it comes in, the rule takes over so fast, you never see it. However, I can go into my Sent folder and see that it has automatically been sent to the email address I told it to go to in the Rules and I can see it in my Archive folder which is kinda cool cause I can see how many come in each day since the unread count tells me.

This is working great for me.

Hi Joseph,

Thanks for your reply. I followed your link but had already seen that help screen. Here are the answers to your questions.. ..

• El Capitan 10.11.6 (I'm not going to upgrade. Last time I did, Apple bought me a new graphics card, not going to risk any hardware issues again on this iMac.)
• I don't have another user acct
• I have not tested this with a different email account, but I can, though all are Gmail

Thing is, I can manually invoke the rule and it works, it just won't automatically work as the spam emails come in. I discovered that when in Mail Preferences on the Junk Mail tab, there is a Reset button and the help screen for that says.. .. "Use this option only if Mail no longer handles junk mail as you expect. Resetting the filter deletes everything that Mail has learned from you about junk mail."

Since at one time, a long time ago, I dragged a spam email from my Inbox to the Junk folder, I think I will click that Reset button and start from scratch and see if then the rules I set up work automatically. Note though that I do not have the "Enable junk mail filtering" turned on so I'm not sure this is going to work but what do you think, worth a shot?

Ok, so this is what I've done so far but to no avail, spam is still automatically showing up in the Junk folder only.

• Mail pref: Junk Mail tab - I reset Junk mail filtering and then unchecked the box that says "Enable junk mail filtering"
• Mail pref: Rules tab - I disabled the one and only spam rule I made
• On the Google email server: I deleted all spam filtering
• On the Google email server: I checked all the emails that were in the spam folder and then clicked "Not Spam"
• After all of the above I waited a few days and then as Junk mail automatically came into my Junk folder, I manually dragged them into my Inbox, hoping to train the system not to put them in the Junk folder

Nothing has worked. I have no clue who or what is causing certain spam emails to automatically go into the Junk folder. I'm at my iMac doing work and can see the pop in, they go directly to the Junk folder - why? How can I stop this from automatically happening so I can then create a new spam rule that might stand a chance of working?

Thanks Old Toad, I will do as you suggest and report back. What I want to do first, meaning after the Safe Mode boot has been done, is to not create or turn on any Mail Rules, I want to see all mail, including the unwanted spam, come into my inbox so I know nothing is filtering it. I thought this was going to happen today when I did what I reported in my last post but something is still somehow sensing that the spam is spam and sending it directly to the Junk folder. I supposed I could also remove that Gmail acct from my iMac and reinstall it.

Stay tuned.. .. ..

Ok, I booted in Safe Mode and followed your instructions. Junk Mail filtering was turned off so I turned it on, then I clicked the Reset button at the bottom of the page and then I turned off Junk Mail filtering and exited Safe Mode and rebooted in normal mode.

As I was sitting at the iMac, a few more emails popped into the Junk folder so nothing I have done so far has worked. I then logged into that Gmail acct online and marked those emails that were in the Spam folder as Not Spam. I will do that for the balance of the day as according to Google, that should help train Gmail that those are not spam. There is a small finite set of them that come from a total of five senders so it shouldn't take long before I have marked them all as not spam. The intent here is to try to get the "spam" emails to come into my Inbox so I can apply Rules to them.

Any other ideas, I'm all ears.

Update as of Wed, 2/24: Nothing I have done has worked. I have read several articles by Apple and others until I'm going in circles, ...no success. Something somewhere is marking these as spam/junk and they are going directly into my Junk folder on my iMac as well as the Google Mail server. Since its a Gmail acct, I believe Google is doing the marking but I do not have any spam/junk filtering turned on within Google and no blocked email addresses. I do not have spam/junk filtering turned on within iMac Mail either.

Suggestions pls on what else I can do. Once again, I would like all email to go directly and only to my email inbox no matter who its from.