Mail rules STILL fail to work if message 'read' on iOS first

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

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Obviously then, the email "rules" are idiotic and not based upon todays reality. That reality is that we have multiple devices, which read the email before our master computer does.

Again, where is the fix for this outdated system. We are all facing this... having many many emails sitting in our master computer email inboxes where the rules have not been applied... and we ALL want them to.

More bad programming and outdated thinking.

So I should reproduce my rules both on gmail's servers and on Apple's servers. That's your solution? What about on Yahoo and AOL's servers... should I reproduce my 50 rules on each one of these servers?

Maybe we could just program the mail app to do it appropriately.. since we all now have many mobile mail reading devices.

If you use all of those different email accounts by all means use every one of the servers.

If you want your rules to be independent of the device you run them on what is your suggestion for a location common to every device that new use the account?

Location common is the computer that is not performing the email rules. It is not one of the email servers. This is quite simple actually. The notion that rules only apply to email that has not been read is from the days when we didn't have cell phones nor ipads or other email readers. This is how far Apple is behind.

The Apple Mail rules code should be rewritten to apply rules to emails that are in the inbox, whether or not the email has been read. Rules should be applied to all inbox email at the interval selected for retrieving email from the respective email servers. This would solve the issue of email sitting in inboxes without being processed by the rules we spent time creating.

It is an obvious issue. It is ridiculous that we even need to talk about it here. Why isn't it identified by Apple and fixed.

Yes, I utilize Apple feedback online forms almost daily. Has the Move & Scale problem been fixed since the introduction of iOS 7.0? Nope. Now if you want to actually see your photo on your lock screen or background screen in it's entire width, while you are looking at the target photo, you have to touch the screen to make the background black and then take a screen shot of your current photo in order to make it fit during Move & Scale, while setting your lock screen or background screen photo. You didn't have to do this in iOS 6 and prior. Broken. I've submitted feedback since then... when was that... Sept 2013? I haven't seen one issue I've submitted feedback on corrected. Feedback doesn't work.

Well, we'd ALL appreciate it if you'd speak for yourself! LOL.. see what I did there?

Yes, it's true, you can't help.... by suggesting that we all make up duplicate sets of rules on multiple email servers that Apple Mail is supposed to somehow see and process in the Apple Mail program accordingly. Filing email in folders on the servers does not file them in folders in Apple Mail, especially if we're talking about multiple servers using different protocols... Apple Mail uses one protocol, therefore this is where the rules should reside. I'm sure you can see the many levels of additional complications that your suggestion would introduce.

No, one set of rules is what WE ALL want to have... just on the Apple Mail program.. and we want the rules to actually work on all the mail we get. We also don't want our email to disappear in front of our eyes before we read it because our Apple desktop (you are a level 9 for Desktops right) merely retrieved it from the gmail server and hasn't even marked it read yet.

Yes, these are obvious problems that we all deal with daily. I find myself asking the question.. "Is Apple actually using their products?". They must know these issues exist. Why are they not corrected in future releases?

If you make rules on the server they also apply to every client using the server, no duplication needed. And (unless you are using POP mail) all folders created on the server are also created on the client, every client. So I no longer know what you are going on about.

My question is are you actually using Apple products?

You may be right about that. But that won't help with Apple iCloud rules. Any email sent to a gmail address won't be processed by Apple iCloud rules... any email sent to an iCloud address won't be processed by gmail rules. Multiple sets of rules gets complicated quickly. I would agree if you were only using one email server, like only iCloud email... or only gmail email.. but when you use more than one email provider and you are retrieving mail via the Apple Mail program, you need Apple Mail's rules to work for all email retrieved... all the time.

If I were to get rid of my gmail addresses and give Apple all my email content, I could build all my folders and rules on the iCloud server and this problem would probably not be an issue as iCloud would seed Apple Mail with the folders I created on the iCloud server.. but I can not get rid of my gmail email addresses now and I need Apple Mail to process all email with the rules I have set for all retrieved email, period. Not just unread emails.

Of course it won't, iCloud servers and gmail servers are separate. Any one knows that.

We have now reached a point of absurdity so I will leave you to deal with your problem, I am no longer available to help.

It was absurd before this thread started... no one wants unprocessed emails in their inboxes after they've spent hours setting up rules to do just the opposite, just because they've been previously marked as read. Another fail from Apple.

And it's, "anyone", not, "Any one".

You will need to live with the choices you have made, having given your opinion to Apple without any change resulting it appears that they are just one more entity that does not agree with you. There is no more you can do except stop using Apple products until they conform to your opinions.

Good luck and Goodbye.

I'm not going to stop using Apple because there is a problem. I'm also not going to ignore it and suggest work arounds instead of repairs. It is a problem. It does need to be fixed. It's another simple fix and we aren't seeing anything done.

Make your rules at the server, that way they apply to all clients.

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are saying but I'll give it a try.

A mail rule is applied once to an unread email. You can not apply a rule to an already read email unless you manually apply the rule locally. When using an IMAP account to sync email across multiple devices when you read an email on one device it is marked read on the server. So when you access the email from another device the email is already marked read so your rule does not get applied. This behavior is by design otherwise your emails would/could not be synchronized across devices. Exchange accounts behave similarly to IMAP accounts in synchronizing email across devices hence the similar observed behavior.

So no need to be "staggered" since IMAP and Exchange are working as designed.