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

When using an IMAP or Exchange account your email is synchronized across all devices. So if an email is read on one device it is marked read on the server. When your next device accesses the email server it sees the already read email and updates your local email client with the read email. As I understand it rules are not auto applied to read emails. If email did not work this way then you would read and email on one device then when you next accessed the email server from another device you would have unread emails in your inbox, which is not true since you already read the email in question.

If your email accounts were pop accounts and you configured your email to leave copies of email on the server after downloading then when you read an email on one device the email would still be available as unread for download on another device and the mail rule should work. But using POP does not allow synchronization of email across devices.

On an IMAP (or Exchange) account, if the email is read anywhere, it is marked as read everywhere. As the rule only applies to unread mail it clearly won't affect read mail. The only way you could make read mail appear unread on the second and subsequent devices checked would be to use a POP mail system, different devices would then be unaware of the emails actual status and would treat all copies as unread, and the rule would apply.

Richard Kelly2 wrote:

I understand this piece entirely: If email did not work this way then you would read and email on one device then when you next accessed the email server from another device you would have unread emails in your inbox, which is not true since you already read the email in question.

However, I do not understand why this has to be true: As I understand it rules are not auto applied to read emails.

The operation of local application-applied rules (NOT read/unread status) does not need to have any knowledge of the server status of a message, as by definition local Rules are not synchronised across devices/servers.

So, whilst it appears that you may be correct that rules aren't applied to read mail, this behaviour is not what the user requires/intends and therefore is a bug - there's no point offering functionality that can't be implemented, or does not provide a warning to the user that a failure has occurred in applying the offered functionality.

It may not be what you want but it is the way email rules work. It is not a "bug" or a case of email rules failing. You could try looking for an email client that applies rules on already read emails but I know of none. Search the Internet, it is typical that email rules do not get applied automatically after an email is read. You can apply rules manually to read emails.

Tell Apple, we can't change it

Feedback

since upgrading to El Capitan I have no functionality on Mail Rules at all! Nothing happens when I select APPLY RULES 😕

glcerio11

You might want to start your own thread to increase visibility and potential help with your issue which is unrelated to the topic of this thread.

I'm with you. It doesn't make sense to me either. If I open an email on my iPhone before I open it on my Mac, the "automatic" filing system I have set up on my Mac is useless? If the rules are only applied locally, then they should not be contingent on the read/unread status which can be altered remotely. It doesn't seem like this should be a feature request as much as a bug report. But maybe Apple is working on syncing mail rules across devices. We can always hope.

It has been a while since you asked this question. I stumbled upon this thread while searching for a similar problem. I think that I found a solution for your problem on another forum. In the OS X Mail application, if you set up a mail rule with the conditions you require, and then add the condition "Every Message" to the rule, the rules seem to be applied even to messages read on another device, as your desire. Of course, you would want to select "if ALL of the following conditions are met:" in the rule, and not "if ANY of the following conditions are met:", so the rule is not applied to all your messages. (Of course, if your rule logic requires "ANY" in the conditions, this will not work.) I am on OX 10.9.5, and it worked for me. I don't know if newer version of OS X support this.

Have you considered asking Apple? or (perish the thought) letting them know your opinions on this matter?

We can not help you (some of us don't agree with you at all) so keep on wasting your time here where no-one can help you if you wish.

Bye.

Ok guys... like I said in previous posts in this thread, feedback is not working for me.

To patronize you, I entered feedback again, on this topic. Lets watch what happens.