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Smart Mailbox not refreshed automatically

I have rules that automatically move incoming mails to different mailboxes, so my unread messages are scattered.


I also have a smart mailbox that shows mails received in the last 2 weeks.


However, the unread mail count in this smart mailbox is often incorrect. It fails to count unread messages is some of the mailboxes. If I go to the mailbox with unread messages, the unread message count in the smart mailbox will be updated to reflect the number of unread messages in that mailbox.


Why do I need to manually query each mailbox for the count to work?


Besides the unread mail count, it also appears that my smart mailbox is not showing the most recent messages from every mailbox.


Is there anyway to force the smart mailbox to refresh?


I was recently migrated from Windows / Outlook to Mac. In Outlook, if you navigate out of and back into a smart folder, the query will be rerun. It appears it is not the case here.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.3)

Posted on Apr 5, 2017 10:57 AM

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7 replies

Apr 5, 2017 11:11 AM in response to alaw168

Perhaps you could take a screen shot of the smart mailbox you created showing the rules? To take a screen shot of an area of the screen, you can use the Command+shift+4 shortcut, and when the cursor changes to a bulls-eye with screen-coordinates you can sweep out an area (click and hold at top left corner and then drag to bottom right of area) of the screen and when you release the screen shot will be written to your default location (by default this is your Desktop but it's possible to change this, so is system dependent).

Good luck...

Apr 6, 2017 9:18 AM in response to alaw168

Well, that certainly looks like it ought to do the job.


But a funny thing happened when I tried to create one just like it. When I said 2 weeks, it only found messages dating back thru Mar 27 (which is a little less than 2 weeks), but when I chose 14 days, I got what I thought I should (back thru Mar 23), so maybe "week" is defined in an odd way (like everything this week and last week???). Try 14 days and see if you have better results.


Good luck...

Apr 7, 2017 3:43 PM in response to dot.com

Your suggestion doesn't work.


I observed the behavior a little longer. It looks like the auto-refresh of a smart mailbox is only done against content in inbox. However, if you manually navigate to any other mailbox, the content of that mailbox is now "visible" to the smart mailbox.


Is there a setting to force the smart mailbox to automatically refresh against ALL mailboxes?

Smart Mailbox not refreshed automatically

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