6.8   Esoteric Preferences

You can set esoteric SpamSieve preferences by clicking the links on this page. Unlike with regular settings, you must generally quit and re-launch SpamSieve in order for an esoteric preference to take effect.

AddStandardRules

Normally, SpamSieve will create its standard set of allowlist and blocklist rules if it detects that they are missing. You can also turn this feature off if you prefer to manage the rules yourself.

AppleMailAllJunkMessagesUseBlackText

Apple Mail shows messages that its junk filter (or a server filter) thinks are junk using a low-contrast brown/gold/yellow text color. Click here to have SpamSieve override this and display the messages with the traditional black text color; for the default low-contrast text color click here. This setting is only available when using the SpamSieve Mail plug-in.

AppleMailMailboxListerExtraMailboxes

In rare cases, an Apple Mail bug may prevent the Select Mailboxes to Filter… sheet from showing all of an account’s mailboxes. You can use a Terminal command to tell SpamSieve about one or more missing top-level mailboxes that you want it to show in the list. For example, if account A has a missing mailbox named M and account B has a missing mailbox named N, you would enter this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.c-command.SpamSieve AppleMailMailboxListerExtraMailboxes -array "A|M" "B|N"

AppleMailPlugInSetIsJunk

Normally, when SpamSieve classifies an incoming message as spam, it tells Apple Mail that the message is junk. This makes sure that Mail will not display remote images for that message, thus protecting you from Web bugs. You can also tell SpamSieve not to mark the messages as junk. This will speed up mail filtering (especially on macOS 10.9), as it will reduce the amount of communication with the mail server. This setting is only available when using the SpamSieve Mail plug-in.

MailboxesOutlineOrangeMessageCountThreshold

When SpamSieve has not been granted Full Disk Access, in order to avoid slowing down or freezing Mail, the Check inboxes for new messages not sent to Mail extension feature will skip filtering an inbox if it contains more than 5,000 messages. Such mailboxes will be shown as orange in the Select Mailboxes to Filter… sheet. In most cases, you should handle this by moving some older messages to the Archive or to another mailbox that you create such as Inbox2. However, if you really want SpamSieve to try to filter a larger inbox, you can change the limit by entering a Terminal command such as:

defaults write com.c-command.SpamSieve MailboxesOutlineOrangeMessageCountThreshold 5000

MailboxesOutlineRedMessageCountThreshold

When SpamSieve has not been granted Full Disk Access, in order to avoid slowing down or freezing Mail, the Filter spam messages in other mailboxes feature will skip filtering a mailbox if it contains more than 10,000 messages. Such mailboxes will be shown as red in the Select Mailboxes to Filter… sheet. In most cases, you should handle this by moving some older messages to the Archive or to another mailbox that you create. However, if you really want SpamSieve to try to filter a larger mailbox, you can change the limit by entering a Terminal command such as:

defaults write com.c-command.SpamSieve MailboxesOutlineRedMessageCountThreshold 10000

MJTUpdaterDeleteDiskImage

Normally, the Software Update… feature will clean up after itself after downloading a new version. You can also set it to leave the disk image file in your Downloads folder.

QuitMailWhenMacSleeps

As described in the Why are messages marked as spam in Apple Mail but not moved? section, an OS bug can sometimes cause Mail not to move spam messages out of the inbox if they were received right after the Mac woke from sleep. You can click here to enable a workaround where SpamSieve quit Mails when the Mac sleeps and relaunches it when the Mac wakes. Or click here to disable the workaround.