Apple Mail SpamSieve Rules Sync Automatically?

[Austin_Baze]

As advised, I run SpamSieve on my home iMac desktop and not on my MacBookPro. Assuming the iMac stays up and online, all spam is caught and filed there and none comes to my portable.

Recently (noticed after Mojave 10.14.3 update) I have been “losing” messages on my laptop, and iOS devices–seeing a message appear on my phone, then “poof” nowhere to be found. After a few tests and many missed messages I noticed a Spam mailbox way down at the bottom of the mailbox list on the laptop, filled with hundreds of messages.

In the Mail Rules pane I saw that the two SpamSieve rules I use only on my desktop had been enabled.

Does Apple Mail try to sync mail rules across devices? I did not enable the rules on the laptop–in fact I did not think they were even there since I stoped running SpamSieve there many years ago.

Am I crazy or were the rules auto-enabled somehow?

[Michael_Tsai]

@Austin_Baze

Does Apple Mail try to sync mail rules across devices?

It syncs the rules, but they should be disabled on the other Mac unless you specifically enable them. You should be able to uncheck them on the MacBook Pro and have them still be enabled on the iMac.

Also, you should move the “Server Junk Mailbox SpamSieve” rule to the top of the list.

[Austin_Baze]

Thanks
Not sure how they got enabled after all these years running this way, but they are disabled now, and I have re-ordered the rules on my iMac. Much obliged.