I wanted to move the Mail data files from their normal location within ~/Library. This is mainly because ~/Library contains a lot of stuff that does not warrant backing up (the biggest of which is ~/Library/Caches) so I should like to avoid backing up the Library folder. I can get Mail.app to work by placing an alias to the real Mail data files in ~/Library folder, however, SpamSieve does not then work.
Is there a way of having SpamSieve work if the Mail data files are not really in ~/Library, or, alternately, does one recommend that I move the Caches files outside ~/Library - and then use an alias in ~/Library to fool the applications that want to put their caches in that folder.
Thanks, Michael, That you think there should be no problem moving the Mail data files, explains why we were apparently talking at cross-purposes.
I have moved the Mail data files (to ~/Documents/Mail) and put an alias in ~/Library pointing to this folder. Mail.app runs without problem.
However, when I run “SpamSieve”/“Install Apple Mail Plug-In”, SpamSieve responds “Apple Mail Plug-In not installed” - and suggests that I drag the SpamSieve.mailbundle to the requisite location by hand (presumably in my case, ~/Documents/Mail/Bundles). When I have done that (though in fact SpamSieve.mailbundle was there already) and restarted Mail, there are still no SpamSieve options on the Message menu.
And if I continue with making the SpamSieve rule, then every incoming message is now marked as spam - which is, of course, an intended pre-cursor to the real operation of SpamSieve.
Thanks for the report. It looks like, while updating some code, I introduced a bug where SpamSieve requires a symlink rather than an alias for redirecting Mail’s folder. Please try replacing your alias with a symlink or e-mail me to get a pre-release version of SpamSieve that fixes this bug.