The inventive method for sorting addressed and unaddressed mail items (2 or 4) in order to prepare said mail items (2, 4) for a mail delivery distribution path (W) involving a predetermined sequence of delivery addresses (Z11 to Z53) comprises the following steps: a) the addressed mail items (2) are detected according to the delivery address thereof; b) the unaddressed mail items (4) are assigned to specific delivery addresses by means of a selectively compilable recipient address list (L) c) a comparison occurs according to the delivery addresses (Z11 to Z53), which are defined for the provided distribution path (W), as to whether one or several addressed mail items (2) and/or one or several unaddressed mail items are available in relation to the respective delivery address; and d) a sorting machine is controlled according to the above comparison such that the addressed and unaddressed mail items (2,4) are introduced into a sort run according to the sequence of delivery addresses (Z11 to Z53) and are removed from the sort run at a destination point (ZS1 ZS5) representing the respective delivery address (Z11 - Z53) and are thus assigned to said destination point (ZS1 to ZS5).