I recently switched mail provider and am less then pleased with their SpamAssassin configuration. Looking into SpamSieve as an alternative and have a question:
I access my imap account using MailMate on my Mac, Dispatch on iOS and K9 on Android. Incoming spam is in the hundreds per day, so I obviously want to set up SpamSieve with a Drone.
When I read the manual, I get the impression that only Mail.app or Outlook can be used as a Drone. If that’s correct, what do you recommend? Running Mail.app and MailMate in parallel or are there any other options?
That’s correct. Currently, only Apple Mail and Outlook can do the drone setup. Do you have rules in MailMate, such that you would want the spam filtered out before the MailMate rules see the other messages? If so, perhaps the answer is to use MailMate with SpamSieve as normal, but to also set up the remote training rule (but not the regular SpamSieve rule) in Apple Mail. In other words, Apple Mail would only be responsible for monitoring the TrainSpam and TrainGood mailboxes.
No, no client side filters in MailMate. But your idea with just the remote training rule in Mail.app and only have Mail.app subscribe to the inbox and TrainSpam and TrainGood mailboxes are the best setup for me anyway? Or what other options would I have?
But on second thought, if Mail.app does not run the regular SpamSieve rule, then no spam filtering will take part when I’m away from my computer? Or am I missing something here?
You could potentially run the regular SpamSieve rule in Apple Mail as well, instead of having MailMate process the incoming messages.
I thought you had one Mac running both Apple Mail and MailMate. In that case, it does not matter which one is running SpamSieve, but one of them must be if you want to have filtering.
Yes, just one Mac where I probably will switch to MailMate as my primary email client. The only reason to keep Mail.app running would be so that the computer also can work as a Drone.
But for that to happen, Mail.app must be do the spam filtering, right? But does that mean that I’ll also have to use Mail.app to tag missed mails as Junk/Non-junk as well?
To recap:
One Macbook Air, where I use MailMate.
One iPhone, one iPad and one Android phone from which I do email while away from my computer.
Today, I noticed that as soon as my MBA sleeps, SpamSieve processing stop as well, filling my inbox with spam. As a result, doing my mail on my mobile devices after an hour or two becomes rather time consuming.
So my question is: If I still want to use MailMate as my main email client on my MBA, what options do I have for spam processing even when my computer sleeps?
No, you could use Mail just to monitor the TrainSpam and TrainGood mailboxes.
No, you could do that from MailMate (using its commands) or by moving the messages to the special training mailboxes.
Well, the issue there is that Apple Mail is the only mail program that can operate during Power Nap. If you choose to use Apple Mail to do the filtering, you would probably have to turn off SpamSieve in MailMate, but you could still use MailMate to move the messages to the Train mailboxes.
OK. So how does Mailmate work as an email client? In a drone set up? How does it react with server (ISP) anomalies like coloring spam and filtering spam?
Message colors are an Apple Mail–specific feature. They don’t show up in MailMate. It works great with SpamSieve from what I’ve seen. I’ve not heard of hanging issues. There’s more MailMate discussion here.
Now that I’m off the hook with having no further need to keep the same app on my drone machines that’s on the servicer machine, I thought of replacing the Mail app. Sadly, Mail issues like these kinds of mysteries don’t get fixed no matter how many people complain about them.
As you pointed out before, Mail has several (other) issues, too. iCloud also has annoyances like filters that aren’t smart enough and can’t be turned off. Reddit has some interesting discussions, BTW. Perhaps an app that works better for me is in order.
Now that I’m off the hook with having no further need to keep the same app on my drone machines, I thought of replacing the Mail app which has several other issues with an app that works better for me. Sadly, Mail issues like these kinds of mysteries don’t get fixed no matter how many people complain about them.