[Johnny Dangerously]

Hi, all.

I'm trying to make a folder in Mail.app that will automatically get populated with messages over 90 days old. I know I can create a Smart Folder to do this, but I want the messages moved there, instead of remaining in their respective folders (i.e. "Receipts," "eBay," "Family," etc.). So I created a standard folder and a rule (via the Preferences) to send all messages with a Date Received of 90+ days old to that folder. Upon creating (or modifying) the rule, Mail asks if I want the rule applied now, and I click "Yes," but none of the messages are moved. What am I doing wrong here?

I just now found the "Apply Rules" item under the "Message" menu, but do I have to do this every time? WTF? Is there any way around this, so I can have a fully automatic "90 Days Old" folder?

Thanks in advance!

[zro]

Mail in 10.4 will do this using a "smart mailbox."

Rules are only applied to incoming mail, not mail that's been sitting around for a few months.

[peeb]

So that makes it difficult to move mail that has been there for 90 days? I guess you could move all of it, and have a 'smart inbox' that contained only mail less than 90 days old.

[mduell]

Make your other mailboxes smart (use tags or something) and add the option for only mail newer than 90 days to them.

[Diggory Laycock]

You could go down the route of having a recurring event in iCal (or crontab) which triggered a script. As the earlier posted mentioned, rules are only triggered when a message arrives.

You could make a smart folder that contained messages that are older than 90 days and not in the 'archived 90+ days' folder (or what ever it's called.) - the script could move all messages in that smart folder to the archive folder.