Smart Mailbox not working El Capitan

Please enter the word "unread" (without quotes) in the search box. Select Message is unread from the drop-down menu. Does that work?

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.

Back up all data before proceeding.

If you're running OS X 10.11 ("El Capitan") or later, triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/Mail/V3/MailData

If you're running an older version OS X, use this line:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder

from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.

A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:

Envelope Index

ExternalUpdates.storedata

Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.

Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.

If the import operation stalls or fails with an error message, quit Mail, delete the two new index files (keeping the original ones that you moved to the Desktop), and try again. According to many reports, the second attempt may succeed after the first one has failed.

Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

Can you find any messages at all by searching for them in the viewer window? If not, is Spotlight working?

Try rebuilding the mailbox.

Rebuild mailbox

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

The purpose of this test is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account. Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”

While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.

Test while logged in as Guest by setting up one of your mail accounts. Same problem?

After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault in OS X 10.7 or later, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The "Guest User" login created by "Find My Mac" is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

Dave, were you an OSX El Capitan beta tester? I was and now I’m experiencing the same issue you had after installing the goldmaster. Unfortunately, your workaround is not working for me.

Thanks Dave. Your suggestion re putting in a date helped me to unlock where all my mail had gone. I set up a smart mail to try and merge a number of mail boxes but nothing was showing at all. When I set the date as being from 2007 suddenly all 33,000 messages appeared.

regards

pierce