Mail doesn't apply rules

[Ankaa]

Hi,

I'm not completely sure this is the right section, but I didn't know where else to put it. We recently got a new iMac with El Capitan and I wanted to have some rules running in Mail (move mails with a specific subject to a specific folder) as I have been doing on my older Macs for years. However, for some reason, Mail isn't applying the rules, at all, not even if I select the "Apply rules" manually from the menue. It keeps working fine on my Macbook with OS X 10.10.4.

Does anyone have an idea?

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[jpn]

if the rules appear to not being applied when you click Apply Rules, then it is likely that the the rule itself is not formed well enough.
question: is the last condition in each rule have you added Stop Applying Rules?
pushing the apply rules button simply runs through all the rules in sequence. if you haven't added Stop Apply Rules to each rule then apply rules button appears to apply only the last rule.

 

[fisherking]

i've seen this happen on a friend's imac (i helped her set up some rules). try quitting/reopening Mail, and/or try rebooting...see if everything works after that (it did for her)...)

 

[Ankaa]

if the rules appear to not being applied when you click Apply Rules, then it is likely that the the rule itself is not formed well enough.
question: is the last condition in each rule have you added Stop Applying Rules?
pushing the apply rules button simply runs through all the rules in sequence. if you haven't added Stop Apply Rules to each rule then apply rules button appears to apply only the last rule.

My rules aren't at all complex. I have only two and they all are of the sort 'If the subject contains xyz, move to folder abc'. Nothing fancy. I have the exact same rules on my MBA with Yosemite and they work flawlessly. Never needed to stop rules.

i've seen this happen on a friend's imac (i helped her set up some rules). try quitting/reopening Mail, and/or try rebooting...see if everything works after that (it did for her)...)

I've quit/reopened and rebooted many many times. Rules NEVER worked on my iMac (or rather El Capitan) since I got it.

edit: I just added the 'Stop evaluating rules' to both, and it worked for one, when applied, but not for the other. Strange.

 

[jpn]

My rules aren't at all complex. I have only two and they all are of the sort 'If the subject contains xyz, move to folder abc'. Nothing fancy. I have the exact same rules on my MBA with Yosemite and they work flawlessly. Never needed to stop rules.

actually, you do need to Stop the rules being applied.
if not, the only reason why your rules were correctly applied before is due to two things:
1. the specific order of the rules
2. the last rule in the list of course doesn't need this line in.

 

[Ankaa]

As I said, I did add the stop to both rules, it's now working for one of them, but not for the other.

 

[jpn]

As I said, I did add the stop to both rules, it's now working for one of them, but not for the other.

glad to hear that one of them is working.

other common oversights when making rules: forgetting to charge the All / Any designation at the top to whichever is appropriate.

the only other advise is to let you know that Mail's rules do work when properly written. so whatever the problem is why its not working is with your rules themselves. at our company we all share the same set of rules and they are quite complex with sorting, coloring, deleting automatically, automatically putting addresses in Contacts (using automatically generated scripts), etc. and it does work.

 

[Ankaa]

Thanks for your reply. Both rules are set up exactly the same way, only with different words (one word each) as a rule ("subject contains") and moving to different folders. It's only one rule each and then the stop, so shouldn't it be 'all'? But I even changed it to 'any' just now and it's still not working. Am certainly at a loss, here, since they are exactly the same and one is working, the other isn't

 

[Ankaa]

Just a FYI, for some weird reason that I don't really understand, changing the order of my two rules did the trick. They are working, now

 

[Ankaa]

Ok, it's still NOT working. Both rules may be working for a day or two, than one stops, after a while the other. I have to trial and error my way around, deleting the rules and making new ones...sometimes that helps for a while, sometimes it doesn't.

Frustrating.