I’ve been using SaneBox well past the trial period and have re-upped. I like it because I can just move items where I want them, and then be reasonably confident that SaneBox will follow my lead and move similar items to the same place in the future. That way I really spend minimal time on getting a reasonable first sort of my incoming email. I tried custom rules a while back, but it always seemed to be too much effort and too much of a distraction from real work to go muck with my rules.
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I’m using Apple Mail rules, but I am getting more and more disappointed with them. They’ve never synced between Macs correctly for me (mainly, the destination folder for moving items is always reset to no selection on the other Mac). I have it set up on always running Mac Mini, but I wouldn’t mind getting rid of that. I also tried rules in iCloud, however, the limitation of having only one criteria per rule is crippling. I also tried Airmail, but it would never actually download all of my mail. The message counts between Apple Mail and Airmail were hundreds of messages off.
OK. Here’s my setup. I’m really happy with it. I like it better than Sanebox.
I have an iMac at home that is always running Apple Mail with SpamSieve for excellent spam filtering.
I created a folder in each of my two mail accounts called @Later with rules that automatically filter less important mail and mark it read. I can also manually move messages into the @Later folder, so that only the highest priority mail is in my Inbox.
I just have a single mail rule in each mail account to move messages into the @Later folder based on the sender or subject.
I also created a folder for each account called @Rules where I can temporarily move messages that need to be added to the mail rule. After less than two weeks, I’m barely using these folders because by now almost every lower priority sender or subject is in the mail rules.
I also tried to unsubscribe from as much as possible.
My inbox is almost always empty or just has a couple messages. Once a day or more, I’ll check the @Later folder to quickly deal with those messages, but they aren’t constantly filling my inbox and distracting me from the important stuff.
To me, this is more simple, elegant and effective than what I had with Sanebox. And it’s free!
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Would you mind giving some more detail how you did this?
Sure! Do you need input on creating the folders or the rules or both?
Creating the rule (how do you identify less important stuff?!)
I identify the less important stuff using the attached rule.
It’s easy to add a sender or subject to the rule. While the message is selected in Apple Mail, simply open the rule in Preferences, click the + button. It will automatically fill in the currently selected message’s information.
Does that help?
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Thats a great tip thanks Bmosbacker, i will be using this in future as i dont really think my sanebox sub is worth it.
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Just noticed that Spark has a ‘remind me if I don’t hear back’ option. Someone posted that that was their reason for staying with SaneBox (perhaps in another thread).
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I have a SaneBox-question: does it only sort into the “Sane”-Folders or also into own folders? Let’s say I set up a folder “Amazon” and I start moving all Amazon notifications into it. Does it learn/train to do it on it’s own after a while?
You can create “DIY custom folders” that are trainable. They do not need to contain “Sane” in the name.
Create the folder in the account settings on the SaneBox site. Once ready it will show up in mail clients.
Since starting this thread, I have purchased a 2018 Mac Mini as my “always on machine / home server” and though mail rules wasn’t the main reason for the purchase, it has sure been nice having it always open and running. AirMail rules make this really nice.
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This thread has caused me to rethink my Sanebox subscription, too. I was an early-adopter and have all the features for a super low annual cost. I have been a huge Sanebox advocate, but would like to lose the subscription.
After pausing Sanebox and unsubscribing from some more newsletters that just get files, I am getting fantastic results after 36 hours of implementation on the MacMini server.
Going to continue to monitor it for now…
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I do all filtering on my main mac via mail rules. I also use POP accounts and never access stuff via other devices.
POP? Really? Get rid of that and switch to IMAP.
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Why?
I don’t want to leave mail on the server and I never access email from any other device. I have no reasons to move to IMAP at all and plenty of reasons not to.
Compartmentalization of tasks by the device best able to handle them is a way to be more productive with less hassle.
We can agree to disagree. I need the ability to access my emails from several computers.
With IMAP, your email archive is always backed up. If your computer goes up in flames, everything is still there and immediately accessible.
Out of interest: what “plenty of reasons” to stick to POP3 instead of the more flexible IMAP?
I’ve known many people who spend a lot of time and money, in an effort to keep their email “secure”.
IMO, after many years of managing email servers, all anyone can really do is make sure their email they want to keep is backed up. (I’ve been a Gmail user since it was in beta because I believe Google has reasonable security, especially if you use 2FA )
Again, IMO, there is no reason to worry about someone accessing my email stored on my provider’s servers. A copy of every message I’ve ever sent or received likely still exists on the servers of those with whom I’ve corresponded. Even if it doesn’t a record of what was sent/received, to/from, does.
Bottom line, I keep my email backed up and sleep well knowing there is nothing I or anyone else can do to keep the powers that be from knowing everything everyone transmits via email.
No need for pricier e-mail hosting to accommodate storage. I have an archive of over 60,000 messages spanning 20- years that I refer to often. That does not include the legacy e-mails from early places like Compuserve and older e-mail clients like Eudora that I still refer to that go back even longer. Putting that all someplace else would be painful at best.
I have no need or desire to manage e-mail from any place but my single main computer.
I choose what level I will interact with my e-mail and for me limiting the devices where I use that tool works. I also do not want to set expectations that I will see or answer email in real time. I do make it a practice to get to email and respond within 48 hours for email to my sales accounts and within 4 days for all other email.
I’m less concerned about privacy of the email as I am about maintaining a full archive myself. I’ve had instances where for legal reasons I was required to pull up messages over 15 years old. I was able to do that and we saved a huge legal fight and bill.