As I continue to investigate how to bring MsgFiler to macOS Sonoma, here’s a tip from a user that allows you to file messages via the keyboard on Sonoma. It also works on previous versions of macOS dating back to 2011.
- Select a message to file
- Click on the Help menu or press Command-Shift-/
- Type in a portion of the mailbox you wish to file or copy the message to
- Choose the mailbox in the list that appears with the arrow keys or the mouse
- Press Return or click the mouse/trackpad
This method makes use of the Accessibility API to search through the menus in macOS Mail. Since it’s entirely built-into Mail, there are no dependencies on plug-ins or third-party applications like MsgFiler.
Limitations
On the other hand, there are some limitations with this approach over MsgFiler, including:
- No ability to open a mailbox
- If there are multiple mailboxes with the same name, it may be difficult to distinguish it by looking at the menu options
- Expanding the mailbox hierarchy from the Mailbox sidebar will cause the menu results to change
- Extra keypress to select the mailbox before filing the message
- No ability to stay open after filing
- Show Help menu keyboard shortcut is global
Multiple Mailboxes
MsgFiler customers may have multiple mailboxes with the same name located under different sub-folders. Take a look at this example:
Invoking the Help menu and entering Test in Mail will produce several options depending on the mailbox hierarchy shown in the mailbox sidebar (within a Message Viewer).
Collapsed
Here the parent folder containing the Test folder is displayed to show some context. The full path to the mailbox is still not shown, so it may still be difficult to tell which folder belongs where.
Expanded
When all the folders are expanded, it’s very difficult to ascertain which Test folder is the correct one. This is because the Accessibility API does not have access to the full path to the mailbox like MsgFiler has.
Global Keyboard Shortcut
The default keyboard shortcut to reveal the Help menu is Command-Shift-/. You can customize this within the Keyboard Shortcuts section of the Keyboard System Settings pane. Note, however, that this is a global shortcut; changing this shortcut will change it for all applications. In MsgFiler, the keyboard shortcut you define only works when the Mail app is active.
Despite these limitations, filing from the keyboard is possible from the Mail app in macOS Sonoma. So, if you are a fan of MsgFiler who is upgrading to the new operating system, you are not completely at a loss from filing using your keyboard.
Corrections: An earlier version of this post incorrectly suggested that wildcard matching possible with the Help menu method. You can indeed use the space character to represent any character between the previous and subsequent characters.
MsgFiler 
Hey Adam – thank you for the tips. Is there nothing you can build for Sonoma…? Maybe some macros that make filing even easier?
I have a version of MsgFiler for Sonoma that can:
1. Get a list of mailboxes
2. Open mailboxes
But I don’t have a way to file them programmatically yet with 100% accuracy. I was looking at the Accessibility API, which is what the Help menu method employs, but as you can see in my example, it doesn’t allow me to know definitely which mailbox is which if there are multiple mailboxes with the same name. Seeing that filing is the number one use of MsgFiler, I don’t feel comfortable with releasing anything until I either have it solved.
As such, I may be removing MsgFiler from purchase on the App Store starting tomorrow when macOS Sonoma is publicly available.
OK… that’s a real loss! Let me ask you a different question: do you have expertise in OSX desktop app of MS Outlook? That app also suffers from these gaps and if you could solve the challenge there, I’d move to outlook in a flash.
Outlook doesn’t offer a plug-in architecture, so I wouldn’t be able to help there. Sorry!
What I find bizarre is none of the mail apps that I have tried offer easy ways to file and open mailboxes using the keyboard. They all require mouse + keyboard which slows me down. I don’t understand why that is. I’ve tried many different apps after you said you would not support Sonoma and beyond.
Any suggestions for other mail apps that offer faster filing and opening? This has to be across accounts (I use mail to open work and personal email accounts).
There have been several third-party Mail clients, some of which did have keyboard filing. I don’t use them, however, and I don’t know which ones are still around. Spark, AirMail, Thunderbird, Newton, Edison, Mime, Mimestream, or Mailspring come to mind that you may want to look at.
Adam,
First I want to thank you for an awesome program we’ve used successfully for so long, for years of updates, and also for helping us to transition to Sonoma.
In addition to the method mentioned above about using the Help system to move emails, which I will certainly use, I have two other methods that may be of help.
1. Set up keyboard shortcuts for several of your most-used folders in advance.
Go to Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
Then click the”>” symbol next to Mail.app, or click the “+” to add Mail.app, and then click it.
Click “+” again. The text must be exactly the name of the folder or subfolder you wish to use. For example, if your folder is “Coding Team/ Templates,” enter “Templates”. Then choose the keyboard shortcut -it needs to be for Mail only, must be unique to Mail and also not something very commonly used for other apps.
Pros: One key press (including modifiers) moves mail into the desired folder and it is very *fast*
Cons: There may not be many keyboard combos available, how many can we actually remember,
2. Set up rules to copy, not move, mail into the folders you will eventually want them to go to. For example, all mail from “BigGamesDev.com” might be copied into a folder called “Big Games.” Then, when you read this email in the inbox, archive the email and it will be in the Big Games folder.
Pros: Very easy to do – just archive with one click or one keypress: ctrl-cmd-A
Cons: This really works best for very frequent senders, because you need to set up the mail rules in advance.
I’ll probably rule 2 for my several most common senders, rule 1 for a few other common senders, and the Help system rule for all the others.
Thanks again for all you’ve give us over the years.
Ah, this explains my “surprise” result today. So far, it’s doing what I need.
And allow me to echo all the other posters in thanking you for making our lives so much easier over the last 17 years.
Happily using the Help menu system for now for moving to folders. I’m rarely coming up with the issue of similarly named folders causing confusion, but it has happened once. I’m also still using MsgFiler to open mailboxes. Sometimes (through force of habit) I’m actually still using it to file messages. It’s slower than with the engine plug-in, of course, but these M2 Macs are so fast now, that it’s not that bad. Only problem is that it’s unreliable for some reason. It sometimes moves it, and then 5 minutes later, it’s right back in the Inbox.
Really looking forward to seeing what you’re able to come up with, Adam. Best of luck with your investigations, and again, a million thanks!
em
Yes, the move back to the Inbox is a known issue that sometimes happens with the AppleScript method of moving messages using stock MsgFiler. That’s why I would recommend using the Help method until further notice!
I’m finding the help menu method with hundreds of mailboxes and projects is kind of hit or miss with the various quirks you mentioned above. But better than nothing.
You can also add a “move message” item to the tool bar which sometimes is smart enough to know where to file messages based on sender and conversation history.
I think you said, Adam, you had a Sonoma version of MsgFiler which worked to go to folders (though not filing yet) I’d be into, as a stop gap, a just “go to folder” version of MsgFiler (Called, I dunno “FolderGoer” 🙂 as that functionality doesn’t really exist in any way in Mail.
Merci pour cette astuce Adam!
Heureux d’apprendre que vous continuez à chercher une solution pour MsgFiler que j’adore.
Meilleures salutations de la Suisse!
Bien cordialement,
Christian
>
Adam – Thanks for your service over the years, you’ve saved me countless hours of clicking, dragging, dropping and incorrectly filing email messages – much appreciated. If you do find a way to replicate the functionality of msgFiler outside of a Mail Plugin then I for one wouldn’t mind paying for it! For now, I’ll battle on with the accessibility help menu – which seems a little clunky but I might get used to it.
In response to NM on Sept 25 regarding the Outlook Desktop app, it already has very good message filing functionality. Just hit the keyboard shortcut ‘shift+CMD+M’. This brings up a dialogue box of all your folders/mailboxes with a search box at the top. So, after typing the keyboard shortcut, type the first few letters of the mailbox, click return and the email is filed. It’s reliable, very fast and exactly replicates how I used msgFiler.
Unfortunately for me Outlook doesn’t allow me to run Applescripts within a Rule so has other limitations but that is a fairly unique edge case so I imagine Outlook would work for others. Although I get the fact that most people might not want to use Microsoft software on their Mac!
Al.
Yes I discovered these keyboard functions a bit later. Thank you Al!!
Hi all – my apologies in advance if this has been discussed… but for those of us who are using Exchange – msgfiler will work fine on Sonoma. Right?
It’s been awhile since I tested the app against an Exchange server, so I’m not sure what will happen. Perhaps someone else on Sonoma who uses Exchange can report back?
Adam, Ditto what others have said. msgfiler has been the most-used feature on my Mac for more than a decade and I really hope you can get apple to enable its re-implementation. Mike
Adam, Is their any progress to get MsgFiler a life soon? Even it’s partially just to find and Goto the mailbox function. I’m surprised that this function is essential for my workflow once I tried to test the mail help method.
I’m going to delay upgrading to Sonoma in order to preserve MsgFiler functionality. Would happily purchase a new app or version to keep what’s been so important to me for so long !
Adam,
Well, first let me thank you deeply for your work with this. I have sent an email to the mail-app-extensions address as you suggested. I also use GPG Mail – who are hitting the same problem.
However, a month or so after Sonoma has been introduced and that I’m running, I’m not sure I completely understand if this is The End. My understanding has always been that MsgFiler uses plugins to implement the MsgFiler Engine functionality, but the basic operations aren’t dependent on it.
Around the time Sonoma came out, I upgraded from an Intel iMac to a Mac Studio, so I’m also newly using Apple Silicon. MsgFiler came along for the migration to the new machine, but of course not MsgFiler Engine.
I’m finding that using MsgFiler without the Engine, while not optimal, is still better than any of the alternatives I’ve read about. I’m just using MsgFiler for basic “out of the Inbox” processing, and it’s _much_ slower than with the Engine – but it’s a lot faster on ARM than Intel. The other two issues that are really annoying to me (in my mode of usage) is the fact that the next mailbox isn’t selected (using the spacebar to select the next message is something I still forget to do disconcertingly often) and that the time it takes to process multiple messages is linear – so a message thread with 8 entries or selecting 8 messages to file takes 8x the time to move one message.
I only have 30 or so mailbox targets, and MsgFiler informs me I’ve filed 425 110 messages so I don’t know how that compares with other hardcore users – but while I really am hoping that Apple provides a usable API and that you can update Engine, I have to also tell you that I still get a lot of value from the product in its current state.
In case there is anyone reading this who hasn’t tried MsgFiler sans Engine, I hope they’ll also not give up (yet).
Are there any updates since 14.1 was released?
Also, if there is anything else we can do to press Apple or otherwise support the effort, let us know…
Thanks again!
For some users, using MsgFiler without the Engine may work, but it also may not work or have some unintended behavior (reappearing messages, copied not moved messages, or messages that go into the ether). If you use MsgFiler on Sonoma, I would watch it very carefully.
I am working on a version of MsgFiler that works without the Engine with better performance on Sonoma. It employs the Accessibility API that the Help menu workaround uses but employs some techniques in the Keyboard Maestro workaround. My timetable is to get this out early in 2024.
This new approach will select the next message in Mail, which the current MsgFiler does not do because it’s using AppleScript to move the message.
Also keep pressing Apple. This functionality should really be a part of macOS Mail.
All good news, and I’ll watch MsgFiler carefully. No issues as yet, though there’s a seemingly-unrelated problem where mail messages from a particular mailing list don’t disappear from the inbox, even though they’ve been filed. But moving them by dragging doesn’t work either, so… they go away when Mail.app is restarted.
Thanks again!