Mac Mail Rules massive problem

Thanks skelly714, in my time of need your words were there for me. As emails were flying out left, right and centre and I was having a mild panic attack... Your advice has just saved me a lot more embarrassment than could have been!

For anyone else encountering this problem let me just repeat the advice to stop the rule in its tracks: "disable the mail account which is causing the problem (in preferences) I personally just un-ticked the mail icon, shut down and re-start the computer."

Thanks again 🙂

Well my problem is same but different. I never even had a rule yet it replies I'm not there to reciev emails. how do i get rid of a rule that isn't even there? Just went through an auto reply rally with a place i ordered blinds from. At least 20 back and forth. If this a mac forum why is this still not answered. I see people with similar problems yet still have the problems. I also checked Youtube and nothing. If mac is the best why no fix?

Your problem, hardware or software, may not be exactly the same as that of the original poster of this older thread, and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.

In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Actually though this is an old post, it may help someone later, the logic is wrong, the reply should have been in Carlos' example, No, I do not want to apply this rule (to messages in the selected mailboxes), because it is referring to the OLD messages already in your mailbox. What you want is for the rule to apply from the point that you make the rule until you stop it (in the case of an autoresponder rule).

However, if I give another example, I create a rule to delete mail that fits a certain condition(s), then there perhaps I want it toe apply to all the mail in my mailbox(es) that fit the condition(s). So, then it will delete the OLD mail. Hope the helps people to understand what Apple rules is asking in the pop-up cited by Carlos in NY.

Again, it only means all emails you ever received in the past" IF you clicked "Apply" in the pop-up that followed the creation of your rule asking you if you wanted to apply it to all messages that met your conditions (see Carlos in NY above). If you select not to apply it then the rule is created, but only begins to be put into operation when the very next e-mail comes into the mailbox(es) you designated that meets the conditions of the rule.

I know the original post is a couple of years old, but I just went through this nightmare scenario. I am a huge fan of all things Apple, but why on Earth does Apple have to be so unintuitive at times? Why not just have a normal "out of office" type of feature that is found in every other email program that I have ever used? Out of Office/Auto Reply: Starting Time, Ending Time, Message you want to use, DONE. Why go through the "Rules" feature that makes it so easy to SEND A SMURFING EMAIL TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER EMAILED YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME? Ok, fine, there is a "Warning" once you set up a rule:

But really, to me, it's saying 2 different things and could be more clear. I read "active rules will always be applied to new messages" and thought, hey great, sounds good to me. I thought it was just asking me to apply my rule to the inbox selected: ie: "This" mailbox. Not, please apply my rule to EVERY EMAIL I HAVE EVER RECEIVED TO THIS INBOX SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. I click "Apply" and now my message goes out to EVERY EMAIL THAT I HAVE EVER RECEIVED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. I'll take the blame for not fully understanding what I was clicking on, but really, this issue could be easily addressed by the team at Apple in a variety of ways. For smurf's sake - click "DON'T APPLY!"

A rule cannot continue acting if you have deleted it. Are you entirely certain you deleted it from your rule list in Mail? Go to Mail -> Preferences -> Rules and make absolutely sure that rule is not in that list. Also, if there are other rules, be sure that none of them include an auto-reply.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you say you accidentally clicked "Apply"... there is no such button. There is an Apply Rules menu item (with a shortcut command-option-L). Is that what you are referring to? If so, note that that is a one-time action. It runs the rule once on the selected messages, which would cause the rule to send an auto-reply once to the messages that were currently selected.

If you are 100% sure none of your rules are sending auto-replies and people are still getting auto-replies from you, you must have created an auto-reply some other way. Perhaps you set a vacation message on your e-mail server, by logging in to web mail and setting a vacation message preference there.

The Apply/Don't Apply buttons you're referring to relate to either acceping or undoing the changes you have made to the preferences. Apply simply meant "keep the changes I have made."

I have no idea what's going on. There's no way your mail rules are doing this, because you don't have any rules. Is it possible that you are using MobileMe to sync mail rules to other devices? If so, it's possible the rule got synced to another device and is still active there.

By the way, the screenshot you posted has a LOT of personal information in it! Six of your own e-mail addresses, one of your web host, a ticket ID from your web host support, among other things. Posting that kind of information in a forum like this is a very bad idea. I have asked the hosts to remove that link, but you would be well advised to remove the screenshot itself from the server you've got it on.

Go to System Preferences -> MobileMe and click the Sync tab, then make sure to uncheck the item reading "Mail Rules, Signatures and Smart Mailboxes." That will not remove rules that have been synced to another Mac, however... you'll need to check Mail on any other Macs that you sync with MobileMe. You can also check the rule settings on MobileMe itself by logging in at www.me.com and going to the Mail applet's settings, though that will only affect incoming mail on that MobileMe account. (Is this happening for all your accounts or for one specific account? Try testing by having someone send you mail at several different accounts, then they can let you know which account sent back replies for which messages.)

I have made this mistake too, I was not concentrating and hit "Apply" in the dialogue box that was asking if I'd like to apply this rule to selected mail boxes and their content. As a result my clients started receiving my out-of-office email for EVERY message in my inbox. This is rather embarrassing and although I removed the rule as soon as I realised what I'd done, a hefty amount of replies were sent. Now, as these do not appear in my "sent" box then how do I check who has received the message?

This just happened to me as well! I hit "apply" and it started sending a million emails out. I know, because I got 177 "MAILER DAEMON" emails from do-not-reply accounts. Holy cow. That means that anyone that's emailed me in my inbox got not only ONE 'out of office' email, but one for every single email they've written me that's still in my inbox. This is horrible.

The main problem is that when I click "Don't Apply," the auto reply doesn't work at all! So what am I supposed to do? Either it applies it to my entire current inbox, or not at all.

Same thing happened to me. It's very embarrassing as it's my work account. Not what I want to be dealing with on vacation. Deleted rule just a couple of hours later and am still getting emails two days later bounced back to me and from people who PO'd.I've also gone to my icloud account and deleted syncing mail messages although it wasn't this account that I applied the rule to.

I'm used to Apple hardware and software working incredibly well/intuitively for years and am absolutely stunned that this has happened. Really don't get why something as common as an out of office reply could be so hard to do.