Mail: Smart Mailboxes stopped working after updating to Ventura 13.2.1

All of you can complain to Apple: Product Feedback - Apple

Doing so here is obviously not working ... dead horse syndrome.

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.

I am having some of the same issues.

• SmartMailboxes pull only the last month of emails into them.
• no flagging of new emails (no blue dots in front of the email)
• search for emails that were received doesn't generate a match for related emails.

I have done the save boot, I have no icloud emails (icloud is turned off), I have rebuilt the mailboxes. Restarted Mail and the computer several times.

This is email. not rocket science. And it has been a while since this has been an issue, maybe it's time to ditch mail.

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.

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.

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.

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'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).

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 were too. Then, today, I just upgraded to 14.2.1, and they STOPPED working again

This is laughable

.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.

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.

Just discovered this also! All my Smart Mailboxes aren't just not working, they're actually missing, which I didn't realize until I created new one that appeared under Smart Mailboxes (which does work) after the Ventura 13.2.1 update done recently. I have a few placed up in the Favorites bar that are all grayed out (because apparently they're referencing nothing).

I have (or had, as of now) dozens of Smart Mailboxes so this is serious.

Yet another anomaly with this mess: I had a Smart Mailbox that consolidated all the Junk mailboxes from my email accounts. That would let me quickly review all emails in Spam to check for legit emails before deleting junk. Now that I've had to recreate all my Smart Mailboxes including this one, no emails show up. When I show the specific mailbox (clicking on a Junk Mailbox) then the junk emails display, but nothing using a Smart Mailbox. So, more annoyance, more weirdness.

Well, it is now May 24 and I have no use of smart mailboxes yet. It can be very challenging to manage large inflows of email without and ability to do some level of filtering. I am shocked that Apple has not seen this as a key priority to fix for its loyal users. There are many options out there for good email platforms. Even those that love Apple's Mail app will abandon them if they don't make it a priority. I am waiting but am feeling like the time will come soon enough when I will choose another option to work with. Apple, are you out there?