Apple Mail - Discard Spam
Summary: Completely deletes the messages in the Spam mailbox.
Requires: SpamSieve, Apple Mail
Install Location: ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail
Last Modified: 2021-08-09
Description
Note that due to a bug in Apple Mail, this script is not able to delete the messages when running on macOS 10.15 or later. However, this script is no longer needed, anyway, if you follow the Switching From the Spam Mailbox to the Junk Mailbox instructions because you can use the Erase Junk Mail command.
Running this script from the Scripts menu will completely delete all the messages in the Spam mailbox under “On My Mac” (rather than putting them in the trash, which is what happens when you press the Delete key).
To test this script you can run it in Script Editor (a.k.a. AppleScript Editor) and look for any error messages in the Console application. You can also enable debug logging by changing pEnableDebugLogging from false to true.
In rare cases, Mail may leave some spam messages in the trash. You can work around this by setting the pRetryDelay at the top of the script to 5 instead of 0.
Installation Instructions · Download in Compiled Format · Download in Text Format
Script
property pEnableDebugLogging : false
property pTrashingDelay : 0
property pRetryDelay : 0
on run {}
tell application "Mail"
my completelyDeleteMessagesFromMailbox(my spamMailbox())
end tell
end run
on spamMailbox()
set _keys to {"AppleMailTrainSpamName", "AppleMailLocalSpamMailbox"}
set _defaultValues to {"Spam", true}
set {_spamFolderName, _isLocal} to my lookupDefaults(_keys, _defaultValues)
tell application "Mail"
if _isLocal then return mailbox _spamFolderName
set _accounts to accounts
repeat with _account in accounts
try
return mailbox _spamFolderName of _account
end try
end repeat
error "No spam mailbox named “" & _spamFolderName & "” found."
end tell
end spamMailbox
on completelyDeleteMessagesFromMailbox(_mailbox)
tell application "Mail"
-- "message id" (from the Message-ID header) is not actually unique, but "id" changes when the message is moved.
-- Possibly a race condition here, but AppleScript sometimes fails (and is always much slower) if we try to get the "message id" from a list of messages.
set {_messages, _messageIDs} to {messages of _mailbox, message id of messages of _mailbox}
my debugLog("Found " & (count of _messages) & " messages in mailbox “" & name of _mailbox & "”.")
repeat with _message in _messages
my moveMessageToTrash(_message)
end repeat
delay pTrashingDelay
set _failedMessagesIDs to my deleteMessageIDsFromTrash(_messageIDs)
if _failedMessagesIDs is not {} then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
my logToConsole("Mail did not delete the messages: " & _failedMessagesIDs)
delay pRetryDelay
set _failedMessagesIDs to my deleteMessageIDsFromTrash(_messageIDs)
if _failedMessagesIDs is not {} then
my logToConsole("After retrying, Mail still did not delete the messages: " & _failedMessagesIDs)
else
my debugLog("After retrying, Mail did delete the messages: " & _failedMessagesIDs)
end if
else
my debugLog("Mail deleted all the moved messages from the trash")
end if
end tell
end completelyDeleteMessagesFromMailbox
on moveMessageToTrash(_message)
tell application "Mail"
try
delete _message
my debugLog("Moved message to trash: " & message id of _message)
on error _error
try
set _messageID to message id of _message
on error _innerError
my logToConsole("Mail encountered an error moving unknown message to trash: " & _error)
my logToConsole("Message is unknown because of error getting Message-ID: " & _innerError)
return -- Give up on this message, but let it continue trying to move other messages to trash.
end try
try
delete _message
my logToConsole("Mail encountered a temporary error moving message " & _messageID & " to the trash: " & _error)
on error _error
my logToConsole("Mail could not move the message " & _messageID & " to the trash because of an error: " & _error)
end try
end try
end tell
end moveMessageToTrash
on deleteMessageIDsFromTrash(_messageIDs)
tell application "Mail"
try
set _trashedMessages to messages of trash mailbox -- Includes contents of child mailboxes.
on error _error number _errorNumber
if _errorNumber is -1712 then -- errAETimeout
display dialog "Mail took too long to respond, probably because there are too many messages in the trash. Please try empting the trash before using Discard Spam again."
end if
error _error number _errorNumber
end try
set _deletedMessageIDs to {}
repeat with _trashedMessage in _trashedMessages
try
-- Coercion prevents building up a list of references that can make the script fail.
set _messageIDToDelete to (message id of _trashedMessage) as Unicode text
if _messageIDToDelete is in _messageIDs then
my debugLog("Deleting message from trash: " & _messageIDToDelete)
delete _trashedMessage
copy _messageIDToDelete to end of _deletedMessageIDs
end if
on error _error
my logToConsole("Error deleting message from trash: " & _error)
-- Sometimes Mail reports an error getting "_trashedMessage's message id", saying it can't find the message.
end try
end repeat
set _failedMessageIDs to {}
repeat with _messageID in _messageIDs
try
if _messageID is not in _deletedMessageIDs then
-- Coercion prevents building up a list of references that can make the script fail.
set _messageID to _messageID as Unicode text
copy _messageID to end of _failedMessageIDs
end if
on error _error
my logToConsole("Error finding failed messages: " & _error)
end try
end repeat
return _failedMessageIDs
end tell
end deleteMessageIDsFromTrash
on logToConsole(_message)
set _logMessage to "SpamSieve [Discard Spam Script] " & _message
do shell script "/usr/bin/logger -s " & _logMessage's quoted form
end logToConsole
on debugLog(_message)
if pEnableDebugLogging then my logToConsole(_message)
end debugLog
on lookupDefaults(_keys, _defaultValues)
tell application "SpamSieve"
try
set _result to {}
repeat with _i from 1 to count of _keys
set _key to item _i of _keys
set _defaultValue to item _i of _defaultValues
set _value to lookup single key _key default value _defaultValue
copy _value to end of _result
end repeat
return _result
on error -- SpamSieve 2.9.15 and earlier
return lookup keys _keys default values _defaultValues
end try
end tell
end lookupDefaults