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.
- AppleMailChangeJunkStatus
- Normally, SpamSieve will tell Apple Mail which
messages it thinks are junk. This updates Mail’s filter and hides Web
bugs. You can also turn this feature off to avoid
crashes and hangs if Mail’s junk database is malfunctioning.
- AppleMailScriptDebug
- When troubleshooting SpamSieve’s integration with Apple Mail, you can
click here to
enable debug logging (in the Log window and diagnostic reports) and
click here to
disable it.
- AppleMailMarkGoodRead
- Normally, SpamSieve leaves messages unread when it thinks
they’re good, but you can also set it to mark them as read for a less
cluttered appearance. (This cannot be done with a Mail rule, since marking
the messages as read before SpamSieve sees them would exclude them from
filtering.)
- AppleMailMoveToLocalMailboxName
- Click here to
tell SpamSieve to move incoming spam messages to a local mailbox called
Spam instead of to the Junk mailbox. This can sometimes avoid
errors when Mail communicates with the certain mail servers. (You can
click here to
go back to the default setting.)
- AppleMailMoveToSpecialJunkMailboxForServer
- A small percentage of customers using macOS Tahoe 26 are seeing slow
training in Apple Mail that is not resolved by the general fixes. The
SpamSieve menu bar icon changes color for an extended period of time
before the messages move to the Junk mailbox or the messages change
color but don’t move at all. Click here
to enable an experimental workaround. (You can click here
if you need to disable it.)
- AppleMailPlugInSetFlagged
- Normally, when SpamSieve classifies an incoming message in Apple Mail as
spam, it leaves the message unflagged. You can also
tell SpamSieve assign a gray flag to spam
messages. This can be useful if you want to see which messages in the
Junk mailbox were moved there by SpamSieve vs. a server junk filter.
- HotKeyTrainAsGood and HotKeyTrainAsSpam
The keyboard shortcuts for Train as Good/Spam from Apple Mail and
Outlook are Command-Control-G (for Train as Good) and
Command-Control-S (for Train as Spam). These can be customized (to
change the letters, not the modifiers) using a Terminal command such as:
defaults write com.c-command.SpamSieve HotKeyTrainAsGood g
defaults write com.c-command.SpamSieve HotKeyTrainAsSpam s
- MailClientsForcedIdentifier
- Normally, SpamSieve will auto-enable its menu commands for
training Apple Mail or Outlook based on which app is frontmost. In rare
cases, a macOS bug or another app can interfere and make SpamSieve think
that the mail client isn’t frontmost, even though it actually is. In such
cases you can click this link
to tell SpamSieve to act as though Mail is always active, so that the
commands will remain enabled.
- 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.
- ShowSettingsOnReopen
- Normally, SpamSieve will open the Settings window if you click on
its Dock icon and no other windows are open. You can click here to disable this
feature.
The following settings only apply when using the Apple Mail extension setup on
macOS 12 or when Full Disk Access hasn’t been granted:
- 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
The following settings only apply when using the legacy Apple Mail plug-in
setup:
- 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.
- 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.