Thank you for SpamSieve. It’s fantastic. But for those of us with multiple Macs (accessing the same mail accounts), the present options are insufficient.
When I’m out of town (with my non-primary machine, which is at home), I find myself leaving Spam in my inbox – just so I can properly train it at home. Yes, I’ve read the options you’ve described for multiple Macs. But with all due respect, in 2014 those options are simply no longer enough.
Please add iCloud sync, so the training is shared among our various machines.
I realize this would require effort – and I’d be happy to pay for such an upgrade. Please consider this.
I would be interested to know whether you’ve tried the drone setup and, if so, why it didn’t meet your needs. A lot of people seem to be using that successfully.
iCloud syncing is not a possibility. Apple has been very clear that (a) only apps in the Mac App Store can use iCloud, and (b) apps like SpamSieve can’t be in the Mac App Store.
That said, I am definitely considering other cloud sync possibilities.
Thanks for the reply. I’m aware of the drone method, but haven’t implemented it for a couple of reasons:
(a) I already have an elaborate system of folders, and even on the ample, 17" MacBook Pro’s screen, I’ve run out of vertical space for displaying additional folders. I’d really need 8 new folders, but even the 2-folder method would exceed my display.
(I’ll be replacing that machine soon, and I’m already concerned because Apple no longer makes 17" screens.)
(b) While the drone method is a clever workaround, I’d honestly just prefer a method that doesn’t require actions other than the already familiar “Train As Spam” and “Train As Good” commands. (That said, I suppose I could create custom keyboard shortcuts on the satellite Macs to move messages to the TrainSpam and TrainGood folders using the same key combinations as the standard commands.)
That’s what I would suggest. You could either use the Favorites Bar to get numeric keyboard shortcuts or assign the standard SpamSieve keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences. The TrainGood and TrainSpam mailboxes do not have to take up valuable space at their normal alphabetic place in the mailbox list; you can drag and drop them to the bottom.
Drone setup is an adequate solution. I’ve been using it for a long time. However, there is one annoying problem with it. Even after SpamSieve has identified a spam and moved it out of the inbox, there is a delay until the drone actually notices that the spam is removed. The result is that spam will “leak” into my drone’s inbox momentarily (usually a few minutes), then disappear once the drone’s mail client does a proper sync with the server. (I am using Apple Mail, perhaps this issue is unique to it?)
Having SpamSieve installed on all drones, with cloud syncing of the corpus, would eliminate this problem. If iCloud is not an option, I would be okay with DropBox or some other third-party service.
I wonder if there’s a terminology problem here. The drone is the Mac that is running SpamSieve. So there should not be any delay on the drone. As soon as Mail downloads a message, it runs it through SpamSieve, and moves it (if spam) to the Spam mailbox. This is the same as when you’re not using the drone setup.
The delay would be that it’s possible for a non-drone Mac to see a spam message in the inbox for a minute or two before the drone Mac gets rid of it. You can reduce this somewhat by making sure that the drone Mac’s account in Apple Mail is set to “Use IDLE command if the server supports it.” Then the done will see the new messages as soon as possible. You can uncheck this option on the non-drone Macs so that they aren’t so eager to download the unprocessed messages. And perhaps also set Mail to check for new mail less frequently.
Yeah, sorry, I hadn’t read the drone manual in awhile and got the term mixed up. (I was thinking of one “queen” and many “drones”, like an ant colony.
I’ve had IDLE enabled forever, but it never seems to help. The drone(s) still see the spam for a minute or two. Sometimes the spam remains longer, until I do something that triggers my mail client to sync with the server. Perhaps this is an issue with the mail server on my hosting provider.
I re-read the manual and some forum threads, hoping a shared iCloud corpus had meanwhile become an option. Is iCloud still forbidden territory for SpamSieve or is there any hope at that option in the near future?
SpamSieve’s data files should not be stored on iCloud Drive or similar services, as that would likely lead to database corruption. SpamSieve 3 makes a lot of changes to the data model so that hopefully cloud syncing will be possible in a future version, but that will probably take a while. It’s a huge undertaking with the type and amount of data that SpamSieve works with.
