How do I get Rules to work in Mail under Mavericks?

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

Apple has released a beta 9.1 evidently.

10.9.1 beta released

Ummm.... question - I'm trying to send feedback - but that feedback page - does not list Mail anywhere in the list of applications to give feedback on...

I too see the rules SOMETIMES applied, sometimes now. There is no rhyme or reason that I can discern. I open Mail, it checks for new mail. Every once in a while, some of the rules will work and the mail is sorted appropriately (or at least partially). At other times, it totally ignores the rules.

If I select all mail, then "apply rules", it usually (about 90% of the time) will then appopriately file the emails in the correct folders. But even then - the other 10% of the time, it "misses" several or all of the messages it should have moved. A second "apply rules" usually gets it all sorted.

Big dropping of the ball, Apple.

Michael, I wish that would work for me! I too have tried to select the inbox and "apply rules" ... nothing. If I select an individual email and "apply rules," then it also does not work.

It's very frustrating. I have sent Apple feedback.

Jeannette

Rules and some preferences simply fail to operate with Mavericks. Mail inbox keeps reorganising 'oldest mail at the top', when you've repeatedly organised 'newest at the top' and Rules do not function with Mavericks. I have a rule that I set up in ML that once emails get to 180 days old, they move into an Archive Mail folder (on my Mac) however now using Mavericks - the rule does not function and my received mail is now up to 220 days old. I have tried the usual fixes - quitting, restarting, resetting etc., but none seem to work. JRH Buckinghamshire UK

This is rich. I posted a nasty flaming email about Mail rules not working. In the process I had to reset my password. Mavericks Mail sent the rest message to the SPAM maibox. Iam afraid Apple is getting ahead of itself with Mavericks.

I know this isn't the right place to ask, but am I the only one who has to click several times on the red traffic signal to get the window to close? I have to click something else, then come back to the red stoplight. Did someone drop an interrupt somewhere? Mavericks is beginning to act like Windows. Not good, folks.

I have similar problems:

If I create a new rule and a new folder to move messages to that folder and then Apply the Rule (or all the Rules) the messages are "copied" not "moved". So they remain in my Inbox as well as the new folder.

Also some old Move rules do not seem to work consistently every day.

I hope Apple fixes this very soon. My Inbox is filling up fast. I don't want to do this manually!

This isn't new with Mavericks. It has been occurring since OSX 10.8. Ever since I upgraded to 10.8 my mail rules don't work. I have researched this up and down and nobody has an answer, including Apple. So if you are hoping Apple will fix this soon, don't hold your breath—they have done mothing about it for over 2 years. I had to purchase Mail Act On to get functionality back. Apple mail in general is woefully anemic and needs to be completely re-thought. For example, why don't my mail rules automatically transfer to iCloud? Everything else does? However, since mail rules don't work, I guess it isn't a big deal.

Rather Disappointment:/

drming wrote:

This isn't new with Mavericks. It has been occurring since OSX 10.8. Ever since I upgraded to 10.8 my mail rules don't work. I have researched this up and down and nobody has an answer, including Apple. So if you are hoping Apple will fix this soon, don't hold your breath—they have done mothing about it for over 2 years. I had to purchase Mail Act On to get functionality back. Apple mail in general is woefully anemic and needs to be completely re-thought. For example, why don't my mail rules automatically transfer to iCloud? Everything else does? However, since mail rules don't work, I guess it isn't a big deal.

Rather Disappointment:/

All of my rules worked fine before I upgraded to Mavericks.

Do Apple monitor these discussions?

I suggest everyone in this discussion logs a support call with Apple to highlight the issue to the Apple support people and maybe it will get fixed sooner?

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

Thanks

Done

I think I've found at least a partial solution to the Mail - Rules Don't Work problem:

In "Mail" go to the menu Mailbox and click on Rebuild.

If you have a lot of stuff, this will take several minutes to finish.

I also reviewed all my rules and made a few minor changes.

Mixed results: I found that running "Apply Rules" didn't work on email already received; but new mail did. I don't quite understand that, but I call it a partial success.

This has been a problem for me on and off longer than Mavericks. I think it slowly started in Lion. Since I'm a developer I reported it via bugreport.apple.com as Radar #15963837.

I see filters working occasionally, working once, working only on new mail, copying instead of moving. It's a mess.

I have found a work-around for this problem but it requires modifying every single rule.

The rules are being processed but the action MOVE to folder does not work.

If you COPY to folder and then DELETE the message as two separate actions it performs the same function and actually works.

Obviously you need to modify every single rule to make them do this...

Try it with one rule first and check if it works for you anyways.