Mail: Smart Mailboxes stopped working after updating to Ventura 13.2.1

I'm already on Ventura 13.6 and wasn't aware of any problems with my Smart Mailboxes until today.

In case people find this thread, I found a solution that worked for me: old mailboxes worked, and new ones too.

The problem apparently relates to Mail's inability to save preferences in iCloud Drive. Here's their steps to fix:

1. 1. Open System Settings
   2. Tap your Apple ID (near the top)
   3. In iCloud Drive › Apps syncing to iCloud Drive, disable Mail
   4. In iCloud Mail, disable Sync this Mac

Reading further, the one comment mentioned reversing the steps and finding success for their Smart Mailboxes "not staying put". I presume they meant mailboxes going missing which is a problem I didn't have.

Sometime in this process I realised I still had Mail open so I quit and restarted the app to find my Smart Mailboxes working again.

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.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

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.

Didn't work for me, but what did work for me was creating a new local user in MacOS, start Mail app and add my existing mail accounts (from Google, Exchange, IMAP) there again. Smart folders worked without any issue.

So it seems that the problem is due to some kind of corruption in the user's folder, but I haven't found out which one it could be. Removing the Mail folder in ~/Library didn't do the trick, it was immediately recreated after starting Mail without having any effect. There must be other locations where Mail saves preferences in the local user folder because even though I had removed all my mail accounts, the favourites and smart folders were still there, even after removing ~/Library/Mail.

I guess/hope that once we find the location of the file(s) where Mail stores these other kind of preferences, that this would help fixing the problem.

Doesn't work, and it never worked here either: Mail smart mailbox not filtering - Apple Community

The issue is the update, in some way, shape or form.

I can do Carbon Copy Cloner at 13.2 with Smart Mailboxes working just fine.

Do the update to 13.2.1 and they break, immediately after the update.

Restore to 13.2 via CCC and all is well.

I don't think it'll be fixed by safe mode booting.

I just upgraded to 13.4 and it appears that both my dual screen screen saver and more importantly to me, the smart mailboxes are again filtering my mail messages. I am not certain it was the new OSX update but I am pleased with my current results. Thanks Apple.

Ventura 13.5 here- I wonder if the problem isn't more specifically about Smart Mailboxes involving date based rules. When I remove logic that involves when a message was received or read, my Smart Mailbox seems to work as expected.

I can't believe it, but after updating to MacOS 14.2 today, smart folders are now working again! They correctly show the numbers of all the unread e-mails and the e-mails don't disappear anymore once you go back to the smart folder. Unfortunately, we probably won't ever know what was the problem and why it took so long for them to fix it, but better late than never...

All sorted since updating to 13.4.1 I'm pleased to say.

I'll add further, now that I've spent 2 hr 35 mins of my time wasted on this bug (thanks to Timing tracking my time) that Apple Support doesn't seem to know what to do either. I just got off the phone with Apple and after some guesses and screen sharing was told I'm SOL (although less directly than that).

I tried to put the .plist files related to SmartMailboxes back into ~/Library/Mail/V10/MailData from a BackBlaze backup but that also did not work. Even replaced the entire MailData folder from an earlier backup to no avail. (As well as booting into Safe Mode, as I noted elsewhere.)

This is either a bug in Ventura 13.2.1 or Apple Mail 16.0 (3731.400.51.1.1) 'cause this just came outta nowhere.

As @orgitnized stated: Going back to Ventura 13.2 fixes this issue, which I don't have the time to do, so more SOL for me.

The only good news with this mess is that I had dozens of Smart Mailboxes, many of which had become useless so it'll be a better use of my time to just create new Smart Mailboxes now. And that's my tale of woe (for now).

got smart mail boxes working again on SONOMA too btw.

https://droidwin.com/smart-mailbox-not-working-on-macos-ventura-fix/

for Sonoma quit Apple Mail

Open system settings > iCloud Drive > Apps syncing to iCloud Drive > Unchecked Mail

closed, then re-opened mail and it seems smart mail boxes (and mail searches) are working properly again. Not sure how long it will last ... but for now, working again. cheers in case this helps.

.m. wrote:

This is absolutely still broken, and none of the suggestions work.

Apple needs to fix this.

It's really not broken. Works fine on my 2017 iMac running Ventura. Try this: download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.

Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.

Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, javaDevOps.

If we understand your post correctly, your Smart Mailboxes are not working as expected after you upgrade macOS. We’d like to help.

To ensure that your Smart Mailboxes are currently set up properly please follow the steps in this guide: Use Smart Mailboxes in Mail on Mac

If you've confirmed your Smart Mailboxes are set up with those sets we'd recommend contacting Apple Support directly. You can do that here:

Contact Apple Support

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.

Smart mailboxes suddenly stopped working properly after working successfully for at least a fortnight running Sonoma 14.0 (M1 Macbook Air): the previous contents were still there, but new mail that should have been there wasn't.

Rebuild mailboxes, restart Mail - no joy.

Following your linked suggestion, works again! Thanks!

Things look slightly different in Sonoma:

• in System Settings, go down to Internet Accounts and select Icloud
• go down to Apps using Icloud and select Icloud Mail
• unset Sync this Mac

Mine also stopped working immediately after the update. I've done all the same steps to no avail. The suggested steps from amandal80 are exactly how they're setup.

Update seems to have broken it, since I was using them perfectly fine prior to my update.