I have been having an issue with a client who uses SpamSieve, Apple’s Mail, and Gmail. I have rebuilt the Apple Mail mailbox several times with the same results. I don’t think this has any bearing but client’s wireless connection consistently tests at 90 megabits/second.
What’s happening is this: Gmail (webmail) receives an email and the same email subsequently shows up in Apple’s Mail Inbox. SpamSieve processes the email correctly and either leaves the message in the Inbox (a “good” email) or moves it to Apple Mail’s Junk folder (the one that corresponds to Gmail’s junk folder on the Gmail server). The email shows up in the Junk folder in Apple’s Mail but the “signal” from Apple’s Mail to Gmail doesn’t work. In other words, Apple Mail isn’t telling Gmail to move the email from the client’s Gmail Inbox and into the Gmail Junk folder. The end result is the piece of spam stays in the client’s Gmail Inbox.
When looking at the Mac mini that is running SpamSieve everything looks correct. When the client looks at her iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air, Apple’s Mail still shows that email in the Gmail Inbox. Gmail (webmail) also shows it in the Gmail Inbox.
I’m at my wit’s end trying to figure how to fix the Apple Mail - Gmail disconnect. Any ideas?
I have set up the spam/junk folder in Apple’s Mail (Mail → Settings → Accounts → Mailbox Behaviors) to be [Gmail]/Spam which is the only option presented. I believe that I’ve followed all of the items in the link you provided but no joy.
I have the SpamSieve 3.3.1 expansion turned ON in Apple’s Mail also (Mail → Settings → Accounts → Extensions).
The emails that SpamSieve has determined as junk have been moved in Apple’s Mail to the “Junk” folder in the folder listing for Gmail. When I look over at the webmail version of Gmail, those spam emails are still in the Gmail Inbox and are unread. It’s like Apple’s Mail is not informing Gmail of the changes (i.e. move this email to the Gmail spam/junk folder so it’s no longer in the Gmail Inbox.).
Additional note: in a given 12 hour period, this client gets about 350 emails. I have SpamSieve set to check for new unread messages every 60 seconds (is this optimal given the volume?).
I have Apple’s Mail preference to “Check for new messages” (Mail → Settings → General) every 5 minutes.
Is it perhaps Gmail is throttling her access? If so, how do we adjust Mail’s settings and SpamSieve settings to allow for faster processing of spam without be throttled by Gmail?
It sounds like your SpamSieve/Mail setup is correct but that there’s an issue with Mail’s Gmail syncing. This is not something we have any control over, but it might help to remove/re-add the Gmail account from Mail or to rebuild Mail’s database.
It doesn’t really matter unless she’s seeing messages sit for a long time in the inbox before filtering.
I doubt it—never heard of that being an issue for anyone.
Client’s SpamSieve was not running from about 11:30 p.m. last night until about 8:45 a.m. For some reason, after her Mac mini installed macOS 26.6, her Mail & SpamSieve apps did not relaunch as they were supposed to do. Mail is set as a Login Item and SpamSieve opens when Mail opens.
Anyway, SpamSieve has caught up with the spam and has done its part but for some reason Apple’s Mail is very slow to update Gmail. It says, “Moving Messages x of y” and it’s very slow. The client still sees those spam emails in Apple Mail on her iPhone and iPad and other Mac whereas they have been moved into the Spam/Junk folder on her Mac mini which is a dedicated SpamSieve Mac. To be clear - the Mac mini is not used for ANY other purpose – SpamSieve is its raison d’être.
I appreciate any other thoughts or suggestions you may have in things to check and/or adjust.
Unfortunately, Mail doesn’t make it very clear what it’s doing or why. It may help to quit and relaunch Mail and then choose Mailbox ‣ Synchronize All Accounts. Or to disable your account in Mail’s settings, quit Mail, then relaunch and re-enable it.
Sadly, neither of those two steps made any difference…it’s still trying to move approximately the same numbers of emails as it was before. It was working so well for an entire day and came crashing down when SpamSieve didn’t launch until 8 hours later than when the system rebooted. In that span of time, she received almost 300-350 emails.
I have set up SpamSieve for a number of my clients and I use it personally and it has worked flawlessly…except for this one client.
Does selecting Disable spam filtering in Apple Mail in SpamSieve’s settings make a difference? Maybe Mail just needs some idle time to catch up with its syncing.
I have not received other reports of this happening.
Please don’t misunderstand, I appreciate your willingness to help, but I did try to do the steps that were listed in the forum and in the Help file that accompanies the app before reaching out to you directly.
I’m not sure what else to try at this point. The client is frustrated and I’m frustrated but I believe in your product because I know it works for all of my other clients and for me.
Personally, I don’t believe this is a SpamSieve issue, but rather an Apple Mail issue. My client’s perception is that SpamSieve is not doing its job when, in fact, it is an Apple Mail that is dropping the ball. Frankly, she doesn’t care about that as she just wants her email to be as close to spam free as possible.
The suggestion to disable filtering for a while was based on the new information you provided about Mail now being stuck showing “Moving Messages x of y.”
I don’t think the help suggests deleting the account, and when I suggested it in this thread earlier you never said that you had done it. So I wanted to make sure.
You started out by saying that you had rebuilt the mailbox, which is not something that I or the help advise people to do. So I want to be clear that I advise rebuilding the database—again, I don’t think you ever confirmed that you had done that.
If the problem affects an account that was added to Mail after turning off SpamSieve, that would seem to prove that SpamSieve is not the cause.
You said, “Does selecting Disable spam filtering in Apple Mail in SpamSieve’s settings make a difference? Maybe Mail just needs some idle time to catch up with its syncing.”
For clarification, as the SpamSieve instructions say to do, I’ve turned off Apple’s built-in mail filtering. So, are you suggesting I disable SpamSieve for a while to see if Apple Mail needs time to catch up?
This is why I said, “I’ve also rebuilt the account a couple of times.” You had suggested it but I had already tried that approach.
Is it possible that the location (i.e. “address”) of Gmail’s Junk folder has changed causing the Apple Mail/Gmail connection to stall and result in “Moving Messages X of Y” to grind to a halt? The address I have in here is: [Gmail]/Spam
My client is still having the issue (i.e. SpamSieve processes Email and moves the email correctly in Apple Mail but the change is not replicating on the Gmail side) I originally posted about on 28 July 2026 (“First Post”).
She is also having another issue which I think may be related to the first issue. I’ve posted about this back on 5 August 2026 in a post called, “Frequency of Emptying TrainGood & TrainSpam Folders” (“Second Post”).
Today, she received an email in Portuguese, a language that she does not speak, and SpamSieve correctly processed it as spam (as per the SpamSieve Log). Apple Mail shows the email in the Trash but the same email is still her webmail Google Inbox. [aka: FIRST POST]
She is also still having issues with emails that she manually moves to TrainSpam and TrainGood staying in those folders. SpamSieve seems to “learn” about these emails and moves them on Apple Mail to either the Junk/Trash folder or the Inbox, accordingly. Unfortunately, though, those emails never get cleared out on the Gmail side. [aka: SECOND POST]
I’ve incorporated all of your previous suggestions (i.e. rebuild email accounts) but the problem persists.
Is there any coding in SpamSieve that checks to make sure “TrainGood/TrainSpam” are processed and emptied either in the Inbox or the Spam/Trash folder? In other words, even though SpamSieve may have already processed the email, is there anything that tells SpamSieve/Apple Mail to make sure those folders are emptied
I personally use SpamSieve with Gmail accounts and have had no issues with the above items. Same is true with my other clients that use Gmail. It’s only this one client that seems to have repeated issues with SpamSieve/Apple Mail/Gmail not talking and working together.
Any suggestion you can offer would be greatly appreciated! My client is at her wit’s end and I am at a total loss as to why this is happening and how best to fix this issue and have that fix “stick” for more than a couple of weeks.
I’m sorry to hear that this remains unresolved. Unfortunately, it’s exhausted just about all the troubleshooting ideas I can think of. Ultimately, if the message is moving in Apple Mail but Mail is not communicating that to Gmail, SpamSieve doesn’t have any visibility into that process. It sounds like you’ve followed all the instructions to configure everything properly, and you’ve reset both the account and the database in Mail.
I looked back, and it doesn’t seem like I asked you to send in a diagnostic report yet. I don’t expect that to help in this case because Mail’s syncing is pretty opaque. But it’s possible that something would stick out as not being right.
If it sees any messages in those mailboxes it will ask Mail to move them. If they look empty in Mail, then Mail is going to tell SpamSieve that they’re already empty, so there won’t be anything for it to tell Mail to do.
Normally, I would suggest deleting a training mailbox and creating it anew to reset things, but since you say the same problem affects both mailboxes and the Inbox/Trash, this seems like a different kind of issue, a general syncing problem.
Yes, I don’t think I’ve heard any other reports of Mail and Gmail persistently remaining out of sync.
