Per-server spam folder setup question

Greetings,

I will be new to SpamSieve and would like to set it up to use per-server (IMAP) spam folders. I would like to use existing folders for this - i.e. I already have, and have been using, spam folders on each of the servers where I have email accounts. After reading through the manual (and I may have just missed it - if so, sorry) it isn’t clear to me whether I need to empty each of these before I set up SpamSieve. I would rather not since for various reasons I keep some old spam messages. Is it necessary to empty all of these folders first? And if so can I move their contents somewhere else temporarily and then move them back after setting up SpamSieve?

Thanks!

P.S. I will be using SpamSieve from Mail.app.

Please see Separate Spam Mailboxes for Each Account.

You do not have to empty the mailboxes. SpamSieve doesn’t look in the Spam mailboxes. The only messages that it sees are the new ones and the ones that you train.

Much thanks!

(I was a little confused because step 6 of the instructions for setting up Apple Mail talk about deleting everything in an existing spam folder.)

The reason for that is that you need to get the messages out of Mail’s special Junk mailbox so that they are available for training and deletion after Mail hides the Junk mailbox when you turn off its built-in filter. You could equally move the messages to the Spam mailbox, but most people don’t want to keep them.