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Junk Mail Management in Apple Mail

I find Apple junk mail management very unpredictable. Despite following instructions such as marking message not junk, resetting junk mail, etc., my junk mail box fills with I'd say 10% of mail I need to see. The end result is having to always check two folders - actually more. As I have four email accounts, I have to check 5 folders: one for the inbox and one for each account for the junk.


Microsoft Mail has an option that Apple should incorporate. Just as we have a singular inbox for all accounts, kind of a "summary" called "All Inboxes" and a "All Sent" summary, so should we have a "All Junk" summary. I'd put it just below the inbox and collapse all of them.


Maybe this is an option and I just don't see it. Thank you.

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 9:58 AM

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Question marked as Apple recommended

You should be able to achieve this by setting up a Smart Mailbox using the criterion "Message is in mailbox" & selecting the Junk mailbox for one of your email accounts. Add a similar criterion for each of your 4 junk mailboxes to the same Smart Mailbox and you should end up with single Smart Mailbox showing the combined contents of all 4 junk mailboxes.



Note in the above image, where it shows a dropdown box showing "Inbox," you would select one of your junk mailboxes for each criterion. Also note that "Contains messages that match" must be "Any" in order for this to work.

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 11:41 AM

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Question marked as Apple recommended

Jan 8, 2022 11:41 AM in response to Christopher Mead

You should be able to achieve this by setting up a Smart Mailbox using the criterion "Message is in mailbox" & selecting the Junk mailbox for one of your email accounts. Add a similar criterion for each of your 4 junk mailboxes to the same Smart Mailbox and you should end up with single Smart Mailbox showing the combined contents of all 4 junk mailboxes.



Note in the above image, where it shows a dropdown box showing "Inbox," you would select one of your junk mailboxes for each criterion. Also note that "Contains messages that match" must be "Any" in order for this to work.

Jan 8, 2022 6:42 PM in response to MartinR

Almost works. Mail is striping out the message leaving it blank. The iPad version doesn’t do this plus the email remains in the inbox. It is not in the junk or smart mailbox folder even from the beginning.


so on the MAC, I see a bunch of blank emails in this new smart folder. Meanwhile, Outlook for MAC is reading the emails properly.

Jan 8, 2022 8:52 PM in response to Christopher Mead

Christopher Mead wrote:

Microsoft Mail has an option that Apple should incorporate. Just as we have a singular inbox for all accounts, kind of a "summary" called "All Inboxes" and a "All Sent" summary, so should we have a "All Junk" summary. I'd put it just below the inbox and collapse all of them.

Maybe this is an option and I just don't see it. Thank you.

Yes, you can easily get an "All Junk" composite mailbox display under Favorites, just like "All Inboxes" or "All Sent". Just hover the cursor next to the word "Favorites", click the circled "+", and select "All Junk" to add.

Jan 8, 2022 10:18 PM in response to Christopher Mead

On older OS's such as Mojave you can view all junk mailboxes at the same time by just clicking on and highlighting "Junk", but newer OS's you will need to add an "All Junk" Favorite as described by markwmsn


Also, it seems that "Mark as Not Junk" has been removed on Mac Mail, even on iCloud.com, and now it just shows "Move to Inbox", but with other email providers such as Yahoo and AOL, you can still mark as "Not Junk" or "OK" when using their webmail.


Be aware that the unpredictable nature of junk mail management is mostly coming from whatever email provider you are using. Even if you turn off all of Apple Mail's junk mail features, you will still have mail placed in your junk mailboxes, which is done at the server level by most providers (including Apple/iCloud mail) and you cannot disable it completely.



Junk Mail Management in Apple Mail

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