Move Mailing List Emails with Rule

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Level 4

3,377 points

Move Mailing List Emails with Rule

If I look at an email in the iCloud web client, I can see that it knows when a message is from a mailing list. (It shows: "This message is from a mailing list." and offers: Unsubscribe | Dismiss as options.)

However, neither iCloud nor the macOS app have this property in the rules dialog, so my question is:

Is there a way to filter all emails from mailing lists into a specific folder when using Apple's Mail app (without having to specify each sender individually)?

I have looked at whether the list emails have my full name in the To field and, unfortunately, they all do - so that's a non-starter. I suppose I could add all the sender addresses to a group in my contacts and filter on that basis, but that seems cumbersome.

Any ideas would be much appreciated!

Mac mini, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Aug 3, 2017 4:17 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 6, 2017 4:45 PM in response to Arkouda

Select one of the mailing list messages.

In Mail > Preferences > Rules, select create a new Rule.

The Rule will pick up the info on the email you selected.

If the sender is not "from the mailing list" try looking at the subject. Often there will be a prefix that is the same for each subject. Edit to remove the custom part of the subject.

Select Move Message to the folder you create.

Add Stop evaluating rules so no other rule can act on the message.

Rules run in the order listed.

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Answer 2

Arkouda Author

Level 4

3,377 points

Aug 7, 2017 1:10 AM in response to dianeoforegon

Thanks, but that's just dealing with every mailing list source individually. I was trying to get to the property that's being picked-up by the iCloud web client as mentioned in my question.

I've fixed my problem using AppleScript by selecting all the emails that I can identify as coming from mailing lists and keeping the sender details in a list (that I keep written-out to disk). I then use a rule to run this script, which reads the list and compares the sender details so that the mail can be moved to a single Lists mailbox.

I also have another AppleScript that keeps track of senders of items that I move to the mailbox manually so that these will get added to the master list. This is run periodically with launchd.

(I originally wrote a script that maintained a single rule with many different conditions, but the number of conditions quickly overwhelmed Mail.)

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Answer 3

getangar

Level 5

4,548 points

Aug 3, 2017 4:23 AM in response to Arkouda

I think you can't because if you see the out of the box "Apple" rule in Mail, is based on sender address 😟

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