Mail: Smart Mailboxes stopped working after updating to Ventura 13.2.1

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.

I have the same problem since around the same time when I made a Ventura update. I tried all sorts of things that didn't work, so I hoped that an update to Sonoma would fix it - which it didn't.

Even worse than the smart folders not working is that the e-mail search (top right text box) is not working either! Strangely, searching via Spotlight works, but Spotlight is not as accurate as Mail's search.

I really wonder what else to do because the problem also applies to a newly created e-mail account.

Has anyone of you tried to reinstall the whole system? I'm worried that the problem might come back again if it's part of my CCC/TimeMachine backup...

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

Apple needs to fix this.

Update: Sorry, it's broken on other rules, too, but in a way worse way. The rules show results, but not all of them. It's broken overall.

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

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

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?

It's completely broken in every way. On top of everything I wrote in my last two posts, the malfunctioning Smart Mailboxes that you do create also just seem to disappear spontaneously after an arbitrary number of days. Hopefully this gets fixed in Sonoma.

That setting was not active with me, but maybe it helps others. May I ask if you also had problems using Mail's search (top right search box, _not_ Spotlight)? Because so far it seems, people report only non-working smart mailboxes whereas with me, I have non-working smart mailboxes _and_ additionaly a broken e-mail search...

Just wanted to add that since last thursday my smart mailboxes have disappeared too except a few that are still in favourites, but no longer clickable. I'm running Ventura 13.6.1. Tried everything mentioned in this thread and still no luck. Apple support no good. Just ended up suggesting going back to an older backup. Wasted hours on this as my smart mailboxes save me loads of time.

Wow, what a great response! Thanks itsapplemike! I was unable to get any smart mailbox to display properly on apple mail in column view using Sonoma 14.2.1. When clicking on a smart mailbox, it would not display the smart mailbox, but whatever the last non-smart mailbox was you clicked on. Disabling icloud sync fixed the issue.

Oops.. I spoke too soon. Disabling icloud sync also disabled my icloud e-mail account, and re-enabling the icloud e-mail account also messed up the smart mailbox 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.

I can confirm it's not fixed with a boot into Safe Mode because I just did that.

Not sure if you're a bot but regardless: You already pasted in that boilerplate suggestion two days ago.

Two people stated it didn't work.

No, not a bot. Just getting old with bad eyesight. Thought I was in another topic.