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TICKET ARCHIVE -> OS X Mail Rules

RobinS - Dec 27, 2007 - 5:10 pm

I've never understood Rules. When you get a spam email you want to quickly block the sender, subject or part of each. There seems to be no quick way of doing this. Which seems absurd. Right click - block sender or block subject - then a pop up window comes up to confirm and allow you to edit the subject so you can make it more general as spam often has the same subject but different ways of describing it.

Replica watches, penis, profanity, sex, free money, casino and a few others should block a lot of spam.

But it would appear that I have to go into Preferences, Rules, blah, blah and manually make up a rule. Did I miss something? The most important aspect of email (spam) doesn't seem to be taken seriously by Apple.

When you right click the message, one option is "Apply Rules". What? If the rule is in there it would already be applied, wouldn't it? There is no selection of rules that pop up allowing which one to add. Did I miss something here? I can't understand what anyone would use this for.

earthsaver - Dec 28, 2007 - 12:28 am

There's no need to set rules for individual junk messages. You're not likely to receive two from exactly the same sender anyway. Instead, embrace Mail's junk filter, which is quite good for most users, because it learns from the junk you mark and the non-junk you unjunkify. I think Spam Sieve is the leading add-on, but I'm quite satisfied with the built-in filter. It catches probably 90–95% of the spam I receive.

- Ben

RobinS - Dec 30, 2007 - 2:44 pm

Well I tried the Junk filter and just about every email it thought was junk was not junk.

Does Eudora have something for Spam or is it as awkward as Apple Mail? Maybe Mail will have some Spam improvements after Macworld in a few days.

Otherwise Mail works very well for me. And I notice that there are very few help queries on Mail proportionately. That's always an excellent indicator of good design.

Its interesing - I'm noticing that the more I learn about most Apple software the worse each program looks. Real mediocre software design. Its great to start you off. Just don't expect much brains behind it. After a while, if you need something good, you leave Apple far behind. It sure would be great if they just focused on the OS and nothing else. No hardware, no frithy apps - just efficient, streamlined, pure OS brilliance. Maybe in another lifetime. Maybe when Steve Jobs is ejected and a thinker gets inserted at the top. It just shows its like anything - no one is good at many things. Just a very few. It takes humility to realize that and turn to others for help in our areas that are wanting. LOL....which is most of everything.

earthsaver - Dec 30, 2007 - 3:11 pm

Again, Mail's junk filter learns over time. Judging it from one-time-ever use is a poor choice. Give it a month or three. Also, adding senders to your Address Book will make it work even better, because if you take a look at the actual rule for junk mail, senders in your address book or previous recipients are treated as acceptable.

So, set as Not Junk those number of messages Mail thought were junk and do the same over time. You can choose whether messages appear in your inbox (Training Mode) or get moved to a separate Junk mailbox (Advanced Mode). I check my junk box at least once a day and, among around 30 spam a day, one or two a week are actually valid and maybe a dozen a week are mistreated as good mail.

As for Macworld, don't expect Mail's junk filter to change at such an odd time. It just did when Leopard was released two months ago. It won't change again until the next OS X upgrade, probably in 2009. If you need something more advanced, try SpamSieve.

RobinS - Dec 31, 2007 - 11:00 am

i don't use Address Book now but in Leopard with its improved searching abilities, I might give it a shot. A get a lot f email, 99% from people I don't know. So adding people to the Address book won't help.

Its just a lousy junk filter. I've used Junk Filters before with email providers and they never work. They are constantly labelling good email as junk. I can't afford mistakes like that. So I guess I just change my email addresses that are in the public domain when the spam gets unmanageable. That always works 100%. I'll check out Spamsieve later. Thanks and you can close this.

earthsaver - Dec 31, 2007 - 2:09 pm

You could also start Mail's junk filter fresh by trashing ~/Library/Mail/LSMMap2.