Will OS X Mail Processing Rules Break MobileMe Push?

[johnjay1776]

I have my OS X Mail application on my iMac set up such that when mail is received from specific email addresses, it is automatically moved to another folder. For example, mail from a buddy of mine goes into a folder with his name. Mail from my parents goes into a different folder.

My question is that since these rules are processed after the mail arrives in the Inbox, will this break the MobileMe push so that the mail isn't pushed out to my iPhone?

 

[TLewis]

My question is that since these rules are processed after the mail arrives in the Inbox, will this break the MobileMe push so that the mail isn't pushed out to my iPhone?

I'm not sure, but my guess is that mail arrives, get pushed out to the iPhone, and then the rules (on your Mac) sort the mail some time later, whenever the Mac does them.

 

[johnjay1776]

Tlewis, thanks for the feedback.

Anyone else have any opinion or know for a fact if it has an impact? Thanks.

 

[johnjay1776]

Well, I finally had some time to do some experimentation with this issue and it appears that something strange is going on in fact.

1) When an email from a buddy of mine comes into my mac.com email address, it is almost instantly pushed out to my iPhone. That's good.

2) My mac.com email account in the OS X Mail application receives it not too long after the iPhone (I have it checking for mail once per minute) and I have a rule set up that moves it from the inbox into a folder with his name on it underneath, "ON MY MAC". The rule works as expected. That's good.

3) As SOON as the message is moved from the inbox into the folder, the message gets removed from the iPhone. That's Bad. I would have expected the message to stay unread both in the Mail application on my desktop and the iPhone. At the least, I would have expected the email to stay on the iPhone period and not completely disappear.

Any ideas as to what's going on?

 

[wlh99]

Well, I finally had some time to do some experimentation with this issue and it appears that something strange is going on in fact.

1) When an email from a buddy of mine comes into my mac.com email address, it is almost instantly pushed out to my iPhone. That's good.

2) My mac.com email account in the OS X Mail application receives it not too long after the iPhone (I have it checking for mail once per minute) and I have a rule set up that moves it from the inbox into a folder with his name on it underneath, "ON MY MAC". The rule works as expected. That's good.

3) As SOON as the message is moved from the inbox into the folder, the message gets removed from the iPhone. That's Bad. I would have expected the message to stay unread both in the Mail application on my desktop and the iPhone. At the least, I would have expected the email to stay on the iPhone period and not completely disappear.

Any ideas as to what's going on?

With MobileMe, can you change folders to something other than the inbox? With Active sync I can press the back arrow in the upper left and select a different folder. When I move a message in Outlook, it also moves on the iPhone, and vice versa. I would hope that Mobile Me works the same way.

If you can't change folders on the iPhone with Mobile Me, than what you describe is a huge shortcoming, but what I would expect. Push keeps the inbox in sync between the iPhone and MobileMe, and mail.app. The message isn't in the inbox anymore, so it dissapears from the iPhone.

 

[swiftaw]

mobileMe is IMAP, so all mail is stored on the server. If your mac rules moved it from the server to a local folder of course it will disappear from all devices.

Why don't you store your folders on mobileme rather than locally on your mac, that way they'll be accessible on all devices.

 

[TLewis]

mobileMe is IMAP, so all mail is stored on the server. If your mac rules moved it from the server to a local folder of course it will disappear from all devices.

Why don't you store your folders on mobileme rather than locally on your mac, that way they'll be accessible on all devices.

I'll second this. There's really no reason to keep messages purely locally, except for backup purposes (and I do recommend making local IMAP backups). If you want to be able to access your mail while offline, just tell your mail client to download and cache your IMAP mail.

 

[dage007]

I was trying to do the same thing and noticed that I could take all of my local folders and simply drag them over to the mobile me account. I was hoping that there could be a way to initiate the rules that I have on my mail app to be implemented on the mobile me server. This way, as the mail comes into mobile me, it gets pushed to my inbox or to the designated folders depending on my rules. When I would get home and open up my mail app, then everything would mimic my iphone.

Is this possible at all?

 

[d21mike]

I was trying to do the same thing and noticed that I could take all of my local folders and simply drag them over to the mobile me account. I was hoping that there could be a way to initiate the rules that I have on my mail app to be implemented on the mobile me server. This way, as the mail comes into mobile me, it gets pushed to my inbox or to the designated folders depending on my rules. When I would get home and open up my mail app, then everything would mimic my iphone.

Is this possible at all?

MobileMe does NOT support Server Side Rules. Maybe in a future release. I hope so.

 

[dage007]

the only thing that had me confused was that the mobile me sync under my system preferences says Mail Rules, Signatures and Smart Mailboxes. I figured my rules would of gotten sync to mobile me on the server and then used them. I guess not...

 

[swiftaw]

the only thing that had me confused was that the mobile me sync under my system preferences says Mail Rules, Signatures and Smart Mailboxes. I figured my rules would of gotten sync to mobile me on the server and then used them. I guess not...

The rules get synced to the 'cloud' and to all computers attached to your account, but not mobile devices.

 

[johnjay1776]

I hadn't checked this thread in a while but I'll tell you what I decided on doing. It may not be what you all want to do but it works for me anyway.

I finally "got it" when someone explained the difference between server side rules and rules that are run by the mail client program. I added to that the fact that MobileMe doesn't yet support server side rules and all became clear.

My problem was that I wanted to save my email for archive purposes and yet still have access to the latest messages on my iPhone. What I decided to do was to keep my local mail folders and just make some rules that moved all of my messages from a specific person that were over say a month old to the local folder.

This works for my purposes anyway until they get server side rules available. I somewhat doubt they'll ever be available but who knows? I really enjoy the push feature from MobileMe.

 

[TLewis]

This works for my purposes anyway until they get server side rules available. I somewhat doubt they'll ever be available but who knows? I really enjoy the push feature from MobileMe.

Well, you could still use another mail service (one that supports server-side filtering) with MobileMe.

In my case, I'm using gmail with MobileMe. This gives me:

• Selective push notification. By using the server-side rules, I can selectively push (to MobileMe) only some email. This allows me to use push as a "you have important/urgent email" notification. I don't get notified/interrupted for all of the other, non-urgent email.
  
  Note that I use my gmail account as my main email account. All of my mail goes to/from gmail. MobileMe email is only used as a "you have important/urgent email" alarm, and I just periodically delete all email in my MobileMe account. (I do use MobileMe contacts and calendar, although I access them only via the iPhone/outlook and not the web, for security reasons.)
  
  
• Increased email reliability. MobileMe can crash and burn, and my email is still accessible (although I may, of course, lose access to push email).
  
  
• Access to more email features: more powerful search features and increased security (gmail's web access can be secure; MobileMe's is not).

If you want more details, and have insomnia, see this blog post that I wrote:

http://meepmeep.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/to-mobileme-or-not-to-mobileme/​