I’ve tried wading through related topics and step-by-step through 7.1.1 Checking the Apple Mail Setup without success. My iCloud Junk mailbox has dozens of emails appearing in it each day but my SpamSieveSpam has none. Also, nothing is being moved to Trash and marked Read although that is selected in SpamSieve Filtering settings as is ‘Move it to the Trash if the spam score is at least 99 (blocklist)’.
I suspect the iCloud mail server is identifying the junk mail and SpamSieve isn’t seeing them. I’ve trained hundreds of emails as Spam and as Good.
Please help me to know what to change so this will work, marking Spam as Read and moving it the Trash.
Thank you in advance. My Statistics are as follows:
Filtered Mail
762 Good Messages
8 Spam Messages (1%)
0 Spam Messages Per Day
What does “without success” mean? Was there a step of those instructions that you were not able to follow? Or did you complete one of the tests on that page and it didn’t do what was expected?
SpamSieve (since macOS 14 Sonoma) uses either the Junk or Trash mailbox for incoming spam messages, so I would not expect to see anything in SpamSieveSpam unless you had specified that in the training settings and manually trained some messages, which would move them there.
If you configure Move it to the Trash… to 99, it will only move messages to the Trash if they match the blocklist. If you want all the spam messages moved to the Trash you should set it to 50.
As to marking the messages as read, please open SpamSieve’s Log window. Do you see any messages that say Predicted: Spam that were not marked as read?
Yes, normally SpamSieve will not process spam messages that have already been caught and moved out of the inbox. Do you see that as a problem? Are you wanting SpamSieve to re-filter the ones that were already caught?
It’s only recommended to train messages as spam if SpamSieve missed catching them. That does not seem to be the case here, as you’ve trained 4,084 messages as spam but the statistics show only 5 that SpamSieve missed.
I tried the training test (moved Spam email to Inbox then trained as Spam). The email was coloured grey, moved to iCloud Trash and marked Read as set in Settings ‣ Apple Mail ‣ Training. Sorry I wasn’t clearer. That’s what finally made me realize my misunderstanding, the mail server was putting them in the Junk folder, not SpamSieve. I’d been expecting SpamSieve to see them in Junk then move them to Trash.
I think you identified what I’m after correctly, refilter the messages in the Junk folder so they are marked Read and Trash-ed.
I’ll stop training as mentioned unless SpamSieve misses some in the future.
Thanks for your prompt reply.
You can have it do that by installing the rescue script and modifying the top of the script to mark the messages as read and move some or all of the colors to the trash:
Thanks for this. I’ll install and modify the colour responses as I see fit. When I was training Spamsieve the majority of the trashed emails were blue and grey.
An odd thing happened before I read this. I had a spam email in my Inbox so trained SpamSieve to recognize it. It was marked Read and moved. I went to my Trash folder to verify this and there I saw your two responses as emails coloured blue. Spamsieve didn’t recognize them as legitimate. Anyway I trained them as Good and they were back in my Inbox Unread as expected. I hadn’t realized your responses in the forum would be also sent as emails so wasn’t expecting them.
Thanks again for your help.
That’s odd since the forum sender is on the default Allowlist, so I wonder whether you had turned off the allowlist or trained a message from that address as spam. What does the Log window say about those messages?
Please keep in mind I’m still learning a lot about SpamSieve and I don’t think I’ve ever touched the Allowlist nor even knew it was there.
However, your suggestion was correct as you’ll see below. If I had known its purpose I wouldn’t have changed anything there not understanding its consequences.
I installed and modified the script as described on the Apple Mail - Rescue Good Messages page. After I created the rule in Mail the script ran as expected but hasn’t done anything since so my Junk folder is slowly filling up again although, from the instructions, I was expecting it to run again whenever new mail arrived in my Inbox. Might there be a conflicting setting I missed.
Yes, if the rule is at the top of the list, it should run whenever you receive a new message in the Inbox (not in the Junk mailbox). You can also test the rule by selecting an unrelated message and choosing Message ‣ Apply Rules.
Can I have the rule run against the Junk mailbox? That’s where those emails are accumulating from the mail server’s spam filters.
I need, as before, to have it run against those. I get almost no spam in my Inbox because the mail server is doing a good job. I want SpamSieve to run against the ones in the Junk mailbox, mark Read and Trash the ones it determines should be blue or grey. I don’t want to have to select them all and Apply Rules. I’m looking to automate this on some kind of regular schedule perhaps.
That’s what it does. No matter what’s selected, when the rule runs it will process the Junk mailbox.
Right, that is just to test that the rule works.
If you don’t want to rely on the rule being triggered by new messages in the inbox, you could save the script in Application format and let it run in the background. It will then check on a fixed schedule.
I thought I’d check my prefs again and ‘Filter spam messages in other mailboxes’ is checked so I looked at ‘Select Mailboxes to Filter…’ and it is set to iCloud with no separate checkbox available for ‘Junk’.
Next I checked the Junk mailbox setting in Mailbox Behaviours in Mail and I had set it to a SpamSieveJunk mailbox (or named something like that). Looking in the Mail Viewer window that mailbox was no longer there. I created it earlier in the week in response to something I read either in the instructions or a forum comment. So I set the Junk Mailbox to Junk in iCloud, sent myself a mail message from another account and it is working. When the new email arrived, the Junk folder was cleared to Trash with the messages coloured and marked Read as I was hoping for.
I can’t remember where I saw the comments re creating that new junk mailbox nor do I know where it went. I didn’t delete it, I do know that.
Not sure I understand ‘special’. I thought the iCloud Junk mailbox was a ‘normal’ one chosen in Mailbox Behaviours. That’s the one it’s now scanning and cleaning up when new mail arrives.
I mean the Junk mailbox that’s displayed in Mail with the junk icon (rather than a regular folder icon). So if you have this set in Mailbox Behaviors to not be the one called Junk on the server, it won’t filter the one that the iCloud server junk filter is using. If you do make the one called Junk the chosen one, then both SpamSieve and the server filter will use the same mailbox, which is what you want.
