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Filter Created for SOME Accounts Never Work

  • 5 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by TRON_LIVES

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Total loss here. Have no idea why the same filter I have for six accounts works in four but not two of them. It is a simple rule of 'match all' (to select the incoming message) and then move it to a local TB folder I set for spam ('All Spam'). I do not have junk filtering on for these accounts. I have deleted the rule and recreated. No effect. The attached image shows the settings. There are two things going on in the image. One is that for some reason with no TB junk filtering, TB decided it knew better and marked it as junk. Why?? The second is the bottom part of the image shows the filter is NOT working. Still seeing these in the main unified view of the inbox. And I think that at times the filter DOES work. Driving me crazy!

Here is my scenario (I am trying to like TB and moved from Mac Mail where these mail rules worked flawlessly):

I have a shared hosting account and a number of domains. Some personal and some for my businesses. On the main incoming server, I set a filter there for spam words in the body or subject, goofy domains, some regex filters, etc... If a match, it simply sends the email to the appropriate email account I set up for these. The reason is that we all know filters are not 100% so I want to still have one big folder (All Spam) on TB where I can casually look through for good emails and adjust my main email filter (NOT the TB filters). And then if I see trends in words/phrases I can then move those those to the big gun filter of PERMANENTLY DELETE! (i.e., "The truth about Chrissy Metz's "This Is Us" Contract." --> if Chrissy Metz in body to subject, it goes bye-bye and I never see more.)

I even looked at the .dat file and, while not on the development team(!), it looks to be clean:

version="9" logging="yes" name="Match All Messages" enabled="yes" type="17" action="Move to folder" actionValue="mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/All%20Spam" condition="ALL"

Total loss here. Have no idea why the same filter I have for six accounts works in four but not two of them. It is a simple rule of 'match all' (to select the incoming message) and then move it to a local TB folder I set for spam ('All Spam'). I do not have junk filtering on for these accounts. I have deleted the rule and recreated. No effect. The attached image shows the settings. There are two things going on in the image. One is that for some reason with no TB junk filtering, TB decided it knew better and marked it as junk. Why?? The second is the bottom part of the image shows the filter is NOT working. Still seeing these in the main unified view of the inbox. And I think that at times the filter DOES work. Driving me crazy! Here is my scenario (I am trying to like TB and moved from Mac Mail where these mail rules worked flawlessly): I have a shared hosting account and a number of domains. Some personal and some for my businesses. On the main incoming server, I set a filter there for spam words in the body or subject, goofy domains, some regex filters, etc... If a match, it simply sends the email to the appropriate email account I set up for these. The reason is that we all know filters are not 100% so I want to still have one big folder (All Spam) on TB where I can casually look through for good emails and adjust my main email filter (NOT the TB filters). And then if I see trends in words/phrases I can then move those those to the big gun filter of PERMANENTLY DELETE! (i.e., "The truth about Chrissy Metz's "This Is Us" Contract." --> if Chrissy Metz in body to subject, it goes bye-bye and I never see more.) I even looked at the .dat file and, while not on the development team(!), it looks to be clean: version="9" logging="yes" name="Match All Messages" enabled="yes" type="17" action="Move to folder" actionValue="mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/All%20Spam" condition="ALL"
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

Matt said The delay in timing of execution should still occur. Even if you are not using the junk filter, or at least I think it should. remember that some imap servers do not understand move as a command and a copy and delete is what must happen (usually under the hood) But for diagnosis it might pay to try and explicit copy and delete. Do the filters work if run manually after all the dust settles from their download? Like a manual run affecting yesterdays mail.

Appreciate the time to reply. But I've given up on trying to figure this out. I've spent many hours and sent countless test emails to try and get TB to do what I needed without having to download an add-on for this and an add-on for that and still had issues. Even something as simple as playing the incoming email notification sound was inconsistent.

I was lucky in that I did get TB to be styled the way I wanted by editing the CSS file (chrome.css) that can be created to modify the look...without having to rely on yet any more add-ons.

I did finally find an app for Mac Mail that stops it from embedding any attachments in the email body which was my main reason for trying to find a solution outside of Mail and that I could run on my 10.9 OS limitation (can't use a newer OS for a specific reason). And those Mail rules all worked flawlessly for almost a year now so I know that this has nothing to do with my IMAP mail accounts or server. Just something inside of TB. It was exactly the same type of rule (tag with a category, move complete email to a folder).

Oh well. Thanks for everyone's time. TB is a nice program, just not for the way I need to use it.

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Yeah, Thunderbird is too buggy of an application for people who have more than one email account and use simple filters on some of them. I've done everything I can think of and find online. Filters are just not reliable, moving an email from the inbox to a folder by drag-and-drop is inconsistent and more. Sad that this program has been around for so long now and supported by many people and simple, basic things are problematic. Really wanted to use this vs. Mac mail but guess I have to go back and look elsewhere.

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Are any of these account set up as IMAP?

Change the operating of the filter to occur after junk classification. This affects the timing of the filtering process and may improve your results. Filtering on body content in IMAP accounts and before junk classification can be problematical because the body may not necessarily be completely present to filter on.

If you are looking at regex in your filtering, you probably need this add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/filtaquilla/

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Matt said

Are any of these account set up as IMAP? Change the operating of the filter to occur after junk classification. If you are looking at regex in your filtering, you probably need this add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/filtaquilla/

Thanks. All IMAP.

I do not have the junk classification enabled at all so don't see (logically) why that would affect anything...but will try.

As mentioned, I just want to move the entire message. Nothing fancy in the filters. No regex or anything other than move entire message.

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TRON_LIVES said

Matt said
Are any of these account set up as IMAP? Change the operating of the filter to occur after junk classification. If you are looking at regex in your filtering, you probably need this add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/filtaquilla/

Thanks. All IMAP.

I do not have the junk classification enabled at all so don't see (logically) why that would affect anything...but will try.

As mentioned, I just want to move the entire message. Nothing fancy in the filters. No regex or anything other than move entire message.

The delay in timing of execution should still occur. Even if you are not using the junk filter, or at least I think it should.

remember that some imap servers do not understand move as a command and a copy and delete is what must happen (usually under the hood) But for diagnosis it might pay to try and explicit copy and delete.

Do the filters work if run manually after all the dust settles from their download? Like a manual run affecting yesterdays mail.

more options

Chosen Solution

Matt said The delay in timing of execution should still occur. Even if you are not using the junk filter, or at least I think it should. remember that some imap servers do not understand move as a command and a copy and delete is what must happen (usually under the hood) But for diagnosis it might pay to try and explicit copy and delete. Do the filters work if run manually after all the dust settles from their download? Like a manual run affecting yesterdays mail.

Appreciate the time to reply. But I've given up on trying to figure this out. I've spent many hours and sent countless test emails to try and get TB to do what I needed without having to download an add-on for this and an add-on for that and still had issues. Even something as simple as playing the incoming email notification sound was inconsistent.

I was lucky in that I did get TB to be styled the way I wanted by editing the CSS file (chrome.css) that can be created to modify the look...without having to rely on yet any more add-ons.

I did finally find an app for Mac Mail that stops it from embedding any attachments in the email body which was my main reason for trying to find a solution outside of Mail and that I could run on my 10.9 OS limitation (can't use a newer OS for a specific reason). And those Mail rules all worked flawlessly for almost a year now so I know that this has nothing to do with my IMAP mail accounts or server. Just something inside of TB. It was exactly the same type of rule (tag with a category, move complete email to a folder).

Oh well. Thanks for everyone's time. TB is a nice program, just not for the way I need to use it.