From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac


Migrating IMAP servers and had to get everyone to change a few settings. Over the years, various mail clients across the family had created various folders that had left things disjointed - one person had rCLdeleted itemsrCY, rCLDeleted ItemsrCY, rCLDeleted MessagesrCY and rCLTrashrCY for instance, on the same account.

So - to specify which IMAP folder does what you go to Settings->Apps->Mail->Mail Accounts-><the account in
question>->Advanced...and then you can specify what folders to use for
Drafts, Sent, Archive and Trash. What I canrCOt see though is any way of specifying a Junk folder. Searching hasnrCOt helped much either - does anyone know how to set it?

Ian

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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16.02.26 01:09, Ian McCall wrote:

Migrating IMAP servers and had to get everyone to change a few settings. Over
the years, various mail clients across the family had created various folders
that had left things disjointed - one person had rCLdeleted itemsrCY, rCLDeleted ItemsrCY, rCLDeleted MessagesrCY and rCLTrashrCY for instance, on the same account.

So - to specify which IMAP folder does what you go to Settings->Apps->Mail->Mail Accounts-><the account in question>->Advanced...and then you can specify what folders to use for Drafts, Sent, Archive and Trash. What I canrCOt see though is any way of specifying a Junk folder. Searching hasnrCOt helped much either - does anyone
know how to set it?

Mail does not have a spam-filter. If you use iCloud-Mail the spam filter
is activated and created on the server not on the iOS-client. If there
is a junk folder it will be shown in the folder list of your
iOS-devices. In iCloud it is called Spam, the symbol is a waste paper
basket with an x.

Same applies to third party mail accounts. Nowadays provider allow to
activate a spam-filter on the web-interface or it is acitvated by
default. The corresponding junk/spam filter will be shown in the folder
list in iOS. No need to specify such a folder in iOS.

What you suggest is still POP-thinking. In the IMAP world things are all
done on the server to ensure consistency across the many devices you may
have that access the same account.

Hope that helps,
J||rg
--
"Roma locuta, causa finita" (Augustinus)
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16 Feb 2026, J||rg Lorenz wrote
(in article <10mtrlv$8h9j$1@solani.org>):

Same applies to third party mail accounts. Nowadays provider allow to activate a spam-filter on the web-interface or it is acitvated by
default. The corresponding junk/spam filter will be shown in the folder
list in iOS. No need to specify such a folder in iOS.

But there is, because you can mark a mail as Junk in iOS and that moves it to the junk folder. By magic, that happens to have worked for me in that itrCOs moving it to the same IMAP folder as the Mac does and as IrCOve set all the server-side stuff to use. ThererCOs no-where on the phone I see where I can control that individually though, which means my family that use the service and donrCOt have Macs to set it up...IrCOm wondering where itrCOs actually going and how to control that.

What you suggest is still POP-thinking. In the IMAP world things are all
done on the server to ensure consistency across the many devices you may
have that access the same account.

Have been running my own IMAP server for...hmm....25 years I think now.
ItrCOs not POP thinking - the mail server has its idea of spam (Postfix/Spamassasin/Amavis/Sieve topped off with Dovecot for access), the
Mac mail client has custom rules for -its- idea of spam and allows you to specify the junk folder, and the iOS client allows you to identify a piece of mail as junk which moves it to the junk folder. That way everything remains server-side consistent. So the question is - how do I get to specify what
that junk folder actually is on iOS?

(An aside: the iOS mail client doesnrCOt come in for enough general slating from the press I think and it worries me. At some point some product manager is going to have the rCybrightrCO idea of replacing the Mac mail client with the iOS one. The iOS one doesnrCOt synchronise smart folders with the Mac and likely never will - far as I can tell those Smart Mailbox rules are held client-side only, which is ridiculous this day and age. Should be
synchronised via iCloud and picked up in iOS and also iCloud Mail. Instead my guess is theyrCOll likely take them away at some point to unify the code bases, and give me some blather about how AI categories are totally just the same and in fact even better honest. WerCOll be lucky if we keep multiple windows.)

Ian

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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

Am 16.02.26 um 14:32 schrieb Ian McCall:

But there is, because you can mark a mail as Junk in iOS and that moves it to
the junk folder.

Because the server and the client agreed which folder is the spam/junk
folder in the case of iCloud and most of the providers as well. But not
all. The move of spam mails from the inbox to the spam folder trains the
Bayes filter on the server with personal preferences.
--
"Roma locuta, causa finita."
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16 Feb 2026, J|a-|rg Lorenz wrote
(in article <10mvein$9jav$1@solani.org>):

Am 16.02.26 um 14:32 schrieb Ian McCall:

But there is, because you can mark a mail as Junk in iOS and that moves it to
the junk folder.

Because the server and the client agreed which folder is the spam/junk
folder in the case of iCloud and most of the providers as well. But not
all. The move of spam mails from the inbox to the spam folder trains the Bayes filter on the server with personal preferences.

Yes - I run the server. And create the IMAP folders. ItrCOs called rCLSpamrCY on the server but somehow magically iOS is moving rCLJunkrCY to it if you manually mark as junk. This isnrCOt a server-side process IrCOm describing, itrCOs purely on the client. I do have server side stuff running with Spamassassin, Amavis and Sieve but this is completely independent - IrCOm talking about something that is happening -after- the server has done its
job.

Which, while it happens to work out for me...IrCOd still like to see where itrCOs controlled and where it gets specified. I see it on the Mac. I do
-not- see it on the iPhone. And be clear - IrCOm talking about my own private IMAP server here, not iCloud or another provider. Something I run.

Ian

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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16/02/2026 01:25, J||rg Lorenz wrote:

On 16.02.26 01:09, Ian McCall wrote:

Migrating IMAP servers and had to get everyone to change a few settings. Over
the years, various mail clients across the family had created various folders
that had left things disjointed - one person had rCLdeleted itemsrCY,
rCLDeleted ItemsrCY, rCLDeleted MessagesrCY and rCLTrashrCY for instance, on >> the same account.

So - to specify which IMAP folder does what you go to
Settings->Apps->Mail->Mail Accounts-><the account in
question>->Advanced...and then you can specify what folders to use for
Drafts, Sent, Archive and Trash. What I canrCOt see though is any way of
specifying a Junk folder. Searching hasnrCOt helped much either - does anyone
know how to set it?

Mail does not have a spam-filter. If you use iCloud-Mail the spam filter
is activated and created on the server not on the iOS-client. If there
is a junk folder it will be shown in the folder list of your
iOS-devices. In iCloud it is called Spam, the symbol is a waste paper
basket with an x.

Mail on iOS does have a "Move to Junk" command, using that same icon.

There's nothing special about the Junk folder, so I guess Mail is just guessing the folder name based on some heuristics like the service name.
Or, god help us, AI. Well OK, probably not AI given it is Apple.

What Ian could do is to delete the account on the iOS side, which goes
and deletes all the local mail. (Which is not as fast as you'd think.)
Then recreate the account, and see if something maps the folder names consistently.

We did this on my wife's iPhone this week because something was just
screwed up.
--
Chris
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> wrote:

On 16 Feb 2026, J|a-|rg Lorenz wrote
(in article <10mvein$9jav$1@solani.org>):

Am 16.02.26 um 14:32 schrieb Ian McCall:

But there is, because you can mark a mail as Junk in iOS and that moves it
to
the junk folder.

Because the server and the client agreed which folder is the spam/junk folder in the case of iCloud and most of the providers as well. But not all. The move of spam mails from the inbox to the spam folder trains the Bayes filter on the server with personal preferences.

Yes - I run the server. And create the IMAP folders. ItrCOs called rCLSpamrCY
on the server but somehow magically iOS is moving rCLJunkrCY to it if you manually mark as junk. This isnrCOt a server-side process IrCOm describing, itrCOs purely on the client. I do have server side stuff running with Spamassassin, Amavis and Sieve but this is completely independent - IrCOm talking about something that is happening -after- the server has done its job.

You could try creating a new account on the server with no folders,
send it a mail and move it to junk. Is a new folder created?

It's possibly hardcoded in the client somewhere (or some kind of rule for guessing what the junk mailbox is called) and not something you can access.

iOS apps are typically scant in the amount of configuration they expose,
and famously hard to look behind the scenes at what they're doing.

(although perhaps you could see from server logs if it requests to open mailboxes of various names, I suspect it will just download the list of mailboxes and do that logic offline)

Theo
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