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Mac Mail New Rules not working

I have been using rules to filter mail for years and they have worked fine. Recently new rules I create do not work, or they work briefly then stop. For example one new rule searches for a string in the subject line then moves the email to a dedicated folder. (These are usually rules I use to put listserv conversations in dedicated folders.)


I have a number of older rules just like that one--moving to various folders-- they work fine, but the new rules don't.


I've tried these things that don't help:

  • Quitting mail and restarting in safe mode
  • Selecting all the messages I've received in the last month then choosing "apply rules" to that subset
  • Deleting the rule and starting fresh
  • Deleting some old rules I don't need anymore in case having too many rules was the problem


Note, my older rules are all working fine; it's the new ones that don't fly.

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Oct 18, 2021 8:34 AM

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Posted on Oct 22, 2021 7:53 AM

Thank you!


A safe restart, rebuilding spotlight (from the system pref. panel), and another restart have fixed the problem.


The reindexing didn't complete properly under safe start but after normal restart it sorted itself out.

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3 replies

Oct 18, 2021 9:39 AM in response to kdinmass

One thing that causes that is a previous rule exiting the rules applied.


Another...


Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.


Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.


Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal

If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:


sudo mdutil -E /

This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc.


sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

Mac Mail New Rules not working

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