Organize Your Messages by Using Filters
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- Revision id: 119468
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- Creator: Matt
- Comment: added a when to include on send and archve
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Message filters allow you to set up Thunderbird to organize your messages automatically. Filters can move messages to folders, delete them, forward them to other email addresses, and more.
When do filters execute?
When you receive new mail. Filters are applied to all mail in the inbox. This can either occur before Thunderbird does it's assesment of the mail as SPAM, or after. If you have difficulty with filtering the message body, select after clasification.
When you send mail. These filter apply only to the email being send and no others.
When you archive email. This is when you select archive and applies to all mail included in the archive action.
Filter are exactuted in the reverse order they appear in the list of filter for the account. So if you have a filter that moves a message to another foldr and then further up the list have one that replies, the reply filter will not work as there is no message in the folder to apply to.
What folders are filtered
When you select to run a filter manually, you also get the oportunity to apply the filter to a particular folder. This is not an option that is available for the automatic execution of filters.
Automatically applied filter are applied only to the inbox, with the exception of Archive and after send filters, which apply only to the mails involved in the action to send or archve, not all mail.
To create a new filter:
1. Click the Application menu button , then click
.2. Click
. A Filter Rules dialog box will appear.3. In the "Filter Name" field, type a name for your filter.
4. Under "Apply filter when", check one of the options or both.
5. In the "Getting New Mail: " dropdown menu, choose either Filter before Junk Classification or Filter after Junk Classification.
6. Choose a property, a test and a value for each rule you want to apply:
- A property is a message element or characteristic such as “Subject” or “From”
- A test is a check on the property, such as “contains” or “is in my address book”
- A value completes the test with a specific detail, such as an email address or keyword
7. Choose one or more actions for messages that meet those criteria.
8. Click OK.
9. In the Message Filters dialog, click
if you want the new filter to be applied to messages you’ve already received. The filter will automatically be applied to all new messages after it's saved.Example filters
Add a star
You might want to automatically add a star to all messages from your workplace domain, making them stand out from the rest of your Inbox messages. You could create this filter:
Move to a folder
You may like to filter out lower-priority messages from your Inbox to reduce clutter. For example you may have chosen to receive notifications from businesses you patronize, but like to keep them in a separate folder.
First, create a folder called “Promotions” (or something similar) by clicking
. You could then create a filter like this:
Because you selected the "Match any of the following option", all messages that meet any one of these criteria will be automatically be moved from the Inbox to the Promotions folder:
- Are from the address sales@software.biz, or
- Have “discount” in the subject line, or
- Have the word “customer” somewhere in the address or display name (“customer.service”, “Customer Support” etc.)