MacOS Ventura V13.00 Mail Rules Not Saving "Move Message To Mailbox" Setting.

I looked into it a little further, and I found the following post:

Mac Mail App does not save new smart mail… - Apple Community

The issues can indeed be fixed by turning off the syncing of settings of the "Mail" app to iCloud through "iCloud / iCloud Drive / Options...". The problem is gone as long as you leave the setting turned off. You can turn it on again after setting everything up, but from that moment on new changes to junk / smart mailboxes / rules / signatures are not saved anymore.

For me turning the setting off was itself a bit of a hassle, because also the change of this setting was not saved (it was constantly turned on again). I managed to get it turned off, by first turning it off on my old MacBook. To me it seems the problems have something to do with the fact that the synced settings from Mail on my old MacBook conflict with those from the new MacBook... Hopefully Apple can look into this issue, because this is kind of the idea of syncing. :-)

Just so we're all on the same page you do know that rules only work automatically on emails that are in the Inbox mailbox, right?

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

directuk2410 wrote:

Hello. I have recently upgraded my MacBook pro to macOS Ventura Version 13.00, and now "rules" in my Mail app no longer work. They basically are not saving the "move to folder" part and so don't function properly. Any ideas on how to fix?

Try turning off Mail in iCloud— edit rules or make some change and see if they save properly; re-enable iCloud Mail and compare your results

If iCloud Mail isn't working - Apple Support

Change your iCloud settings - Apple Support

Change Add Rule settings in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Change Rule settings in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Filter emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Filter emails in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Use rules to manage emails you receive in Mail on Mac ...

Use rules to manage emails you receive in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

It is quite easy to re-produce this error:

1. create a folder in your account
2. create a new rule and set that after fulfilling the conditions, the email shall be moved to the above created folder (select Move to folder and select the folder)
3. save and close the settings
4. quit Mail and open it again
5. go to the same rule and open the rule, you can see that in the bottom it says: Select Folder, rather than showing the folder selected in step 2

It does keep the information as long as Mail is not closed, but once quit and reopen, the saved folder locations are lost and you have to re-select them.

Hope this helps

Same here on a MacBook Pro M1 Max with a clean install of Ventura 13.2 (using the installer from a USB stick): I add a bunch of rules, close Mail, restart mail and all my rules are gone, and the default rule "News from Apple" is back.

I have my previous MacBook to take a peak at which also runs Ventura 13.2 (through upgrading from previous MacOS). On the old Mac I have some files/folders which are not present on the new Mac in the following folder:

~/Username/Library/Mail/V10/MailData

• LSMMap2
• Signatures (folder)
• SyncedFilesInfo.plist
• SyncedRules.plist
• SyncedSmartMailboxes.plist

After I noticed this, I also found out that my junk mail settings, signatures and smart mailboxes are not saved when created! I can change them find on the old MacBook, but changed are not saved on the new MacBook.

Hello,

Just to tell I have the same trouble with Ventura 13.0.1. I try to fix it with «turn off turn on iCloud Mail » with no success. After that I try to delete ~/Library/Mail/V10 folder with no result.

Mail Rule to Forward Message is not functional.

My iMac is a new M1 24" that came with Ventura factory installed.

Mail iCloud has always been inactive.

I'm using Mail to view my imap email account.

I can, of course, forward an email manually but not via Rules.

All else in mail that I use seems to function OK.

I am having the same problem, it continues to exist under Ventura 13.1 (22C65)

Is there any solution, this is really painful as I am used to sorting about 100 emails a day to about 30 different folders.

Now they all end up in my inbox and I have to sort them manually.

Any other solutions rather than installing it from an external drive?

Cheers

Simon

@apple developers.

Please help us. It is really causing trouble. I receive hundreds of emails and need to sort them now manually.

It is about the MOVE TO FOLDER option. Mail forgets the selected folders and then moves emails randomly to other mailboxes.

Please investigate and get this fixed. Do not want to switch to Thunderbird or Outlook.

Same here on a MacBook Pro M1 Max with a clean install of Ventura 13.2 (using the installer from a USB stick). I added all my rules, closed Mail, and found all my rules were deleted after restarting Mail.

In the meanwhile I'm one week further. I've now wiped / reinstalled my old MacBook for sale, so it's completely disconnected from my AppleID / iCloud account. This means I'm back to a single laptop running MacOS 13.2.

Unfortunately the problem persists: when I turn off "Mail" from "iCloud / iCloud Drive / Options..." I can change settings to smart mailboxes + rules + signatures + junk, but when I turn the setting back on changes are discarded after closing Mail.

Interesting that you can update to 13.2. I checked and I am on 13.1 on my M1 MacBook Pro and there is no update available to 13.2… I am having issues with my mail and it is driving me crazy!!! I delete some, they come back. I move messages to where I want them (because Mail is not moving them like I have set up) and they come back to the Inbox. This is very frustrating.

I am running Ventura 13.2 on a MacBook Air M1 and I just cannot have rules forwarding emails. If I change to Redirect instead of Forward then it works, but I need to forward messages with my address as the sender. I have already turned of iCloud Drive for Mail and it still does not work.

Any suggestions?

Finally, I solve my issue by reinstalling Ventura with an external USB hard drive. To make an external installer see this link. 

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Just re-installed Ventura as described here: How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

but it did not help.

Any other ideas?