Mail Rules and Junk Mail - Is there a Priority?

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Level 1

46 points

Mail Rules and Junk Mail - Is there a Priority?

I have several rules that look for a particular From email address format and automatically delete it and it works pretty good. However, many times I will have mail in my Junk folder that should have been deleted, per the rules. I know rules are applied only to mail coming into an inbox. So does junk mail somehow get processed and moved to the Junk folder BEFORE the rules are applied? If so, how can I make it that rules are applied to junk mail too.

Example: I get several spam emails from email addresses such as xxxxx@xxxxx.info. Where the xxxxx is different every time, but always end in .info

My rule:

If any of the following conditions are met:

From contains .info

Perform the following actions:

Delete Message

Mark as Read

Even with this rule, I find mail in my Junk folder from email addresses ending in .info. Any suggestions?

Edit: In my Mail Settings I have "Filter junk mail before applying my rules" unchecked.

MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Apr 25, 2023 9:05 AM

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Answer 1

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Old Toad

Level 10

208,105 points

Apr 25, 2023 10:44 AM in response to JupiterOne

Since Rules only work on email in the Inbox try setting the Junk mail to this setting:

Then see if your rule for .info will work.

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Answer 2

JupiterOne Author

Level 1

46 points

Apr 25, 2023 10:57 AM in response to Old Toad

Thank you for the reply. I did not have that Junk setting selected so I just selected it. I had it set to "Move it to the Junk mailbox" so I'm guessing Junk mail has a higher priority for processing than rules.

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Answer 3

JupiterOne Author

Level 1

46 points

Apr 27, 2023 7:45 PM in response to JupiterOne

So even after changing my Junk settings as mentioned above, this is still not working. I even disabled Junk mail filtering altogether, (thinking the junk mail would stay in my inbox and get run against the rules), but the junk email still remains in my Junk folder. I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but most of the spam I get is from my Comcast and Yahoo accounts. But I'm assuming that when Mail downloads the email from the various servers, it should run the rules, regardless of the email account.

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Answer 4

NBW

Level 1

19 points

Apr 27, 2023 9:22 PM in response to JupiterOne

I posted a similar thread today. Seeing Junk mail filtering even when turning it off in MacOS Mail's settings. I looked on iCloud since this is an iCloud account, and I did not see a setting to turn off Junk mail processing on iCloud so maybe it's happening there? I would kind of expect that settings for an iCloud account should sync between iCloud, MacOS Mail and iOS mail but I suspect they don't.

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Mail Rules and Junk Mail - Is there a Priority?

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