Why does AppleScript find Mail messages after it moves them?

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

I have an AppleScript that does the following.

  1. Activates Mail.app.
  2. Looks for messages in a particular folder that is not flagged (“OmniFocus”, in my usage).
  3. Runs a script on those messages to add them as tasks in Omnifocus.
  4. Flags each message.
  5. Moves each message to an archive folder.

I added the flagging step (Step 4) because without it, the script was finding the same messages repeatedly even though they had already been moved to the Archive folder. This resulted in many duplicate tasks in OmniFocus. The script works, but the use of the flagged status is a hack and I’d like to understand why AppleScript keeps finding messages in my “OmniFocus” folder when they’ve already been moved to the “Archive” folder.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions - I’d love to remove the flagging step. Script is below.


property theAccount : "FastMail"

on run
	tell application "Mail"
		launch
		synchronize with account theAccount
		
		set theOFFolder to mailbox "OmniFocus" in account theAccount
		set theArchiveFolder to mailbox "Archive" in account theAccount
		
		set theTempMessages to {}
		set theMessages to {}
		set theTempMessages to the messages in theOFFolder
		
		-- Remove the message from the list if it is flagged
		repeat with aMessage in theTempMessages
			if the flagged status of aMessage is false then
				set the end of theMessages to aMessage
			end if
		end repeat
		
		-- Quit if there are no messages to process
		set theMessageCount to count of theMessages
		if theMessageCount is equal to 0 then
			tell me to quit
		end if
		
		-- For each message, add it to Omnifocus, flag it, then move it to the FastMail archive folder
		try
			repeat with aMessage in theMessages
				my process_message(aMessage)
				delay 1
			end repeat
		on error m number n
			tell application "OmniFocus"
				log "Exception in Mail action: (" & n & ") " & m
			end tell
		end try
		
		repeat with aMessage in theMessages
			tell application "Mail"
				set flagged status of aMessage to true
				move aMessage to theArchiveFolder
			end tell
		end repeat
	end tell
	
	try
		tell application "OmniFocus"
			synchronize default document
		end tell
	end try
	
	tell application "Mail"
		synchronize with account theAccount
	end tell
	
end run

on process_message(theMessage)
	using terms from application "Mail"
		set theSubject to subject of theMessage
		set singleTask to false
		if (theSubject starts with "Fwd: ") then
			-- Whole forwarded messages shouldn't split.
			set singleTask to true
			set theSubject to rich text 6 through -1 of theSubject
		end if
		
		set theText to "--" & theSubject & return & "message:%3c" & message id of theMessage & "%3e" & return & content of theMessage
		tell application "OmniFocus"
			tell default document
				parse tasks with transport text theText as single task singleTask
			end tell
		end tell
	end using terms from
end process_message

Model: iMac 2011
AppleScript: 2.2.4
Browser: Safari 536.29.13
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.8)