Mute threads

There is a mute feature, but that's probably not what you want.

Other than that I would suggest setting up a smart mailbox to catch the messages you do want to be notified about (maybe anything but the mailing lists) and then setup the sound for that mailbox instead (in the Counters preferences pane).

Some kind of “do not disturb” feature could be useful, but I'm not sure how that should work -- especially not when there are exceptions.

Possibly a way to save and restore setups on the Counters pane? That, combined with some applescript / CLI capability to load a given setup (or a DND feature to switch to a different setup for a while) would be able to do this, I think.

The Counters pane is going to the trashcan at some point. It's a GUI disaster. The functionality will move to the mailbox editor (at least that is the plan). Some kind of store/restore could be possible for that I guess.

What about this: A sound is almost always configured for a menu bar counter. A menu bar counter with a sound could have a special menu like this:

Sound
    Mute/Unmute (toggle)
    Mute for 1 hour
    Mute for 2 hours
    Mute for 4 hours
    Mute for 8 hours
    Mute for ... (displays input field similar to the one use for Send Later)

Just thinking out loud here. Alexander should then have a separate counter for the important messages.

Exactly what happens when muting is also an open question. Should the counter be hidden while muted for a fixed amount of time (then how can it be unmuted)? Should any arriving messages be completely hidden (such that one can still use MailMate without being interrupted). I get a creeping feeling of feature overkill although I kind of like the idea of temporarily muting/hiding/postponing new messages while still being able to receive specific messages :-)