Unread mailbox is missing

Hello. I am having challenges with mac mail on my 2017 MacPro desktop with Sonoma OS. A long while ago, don't recall what update, my UNREAD mailbox went awry. It would show an empty box but a notification bubble next to the mailbox said I had unread mail. I tried fixing it, deleting it, rebuilding index, and many other suggestions on this forum with no cure. I have tried to remake it as a smart mailbox but it doesn't count correctly....it omits a majority of those that got filtered to folders. I have 4 email addresses it is managing, 2 gmail and 2 icloud mail. I have re-entered the accounts, enabled, disabled, checked the smart mailbox settings and am getting nowhere. After nearly 6 months of this, I am fed up! I deleted the mailbox yet again but now I have to go through my many mailboxes and folders they are filtered to via search or manually to find all the unread mail. The unread mailbox exists on my iphone but not my macpro! What can I do?!