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I cannot get a message filter to work

  • 39 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 253 views
  • Last reply by Purebeads

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Message filters have always worked well for me, but suddenly I cannot get a simple filter like so many others to work.

I want a combination of From address and Subject to cause an email deletion. Most of my filters work this way.

No matter what part of the Subject I use, I can't get this to work. Yes, I know how to set up a filter. I have many filters and they have always worked. But now this one won't work.

What do I do?

==

TB 68.2.2 (32), FireFox 70.0.1 (64), Windows 10 Home, HP Laptop

Message filters have always worked well for me, but suddenly I cannot get a simple filter like so many others to work. I want a combination of From address and Subject to cause an email deletion. Most of my filters work this way. No matter what part of the Subject I use, I can't get this to work. Yes, I know how to set up a filter. I have many filters and they have always worked. But now this one won't work. What do I do? ==== TB 68.2.2 (32), FireFox 70.0.1 (64), Windows 10 Home, HP Laptop
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

To filter on the Reply-to header, add it by clicking Customize in the filter drop-down (see picture).

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (20)

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Thanks for images they explain exactly what is going on. The 'From' is incorrect. You have 'From' and 'contains' and 'noreply@byram' It should be 'noreply@info.byram'

that should get it working.

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Great, solved my problem! But this reveals a possible bug in Thunderbird.

I right-clicked the Reply To field and got this wrong email address. I should have right-clicked the From field.

But suppose I had wanted to filter on the Reply To field for real? It turns out that when we edit a filter, there is no way to select the Reply To field.

I'm not sure if it is true that we never want to filter on the Reply To field.

For some reason, the email standard includes both From and Reply To fields. I guess there is some reason for this, but TB doesn't handle it for filtering...

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Chosen Solution

To filter on the Reply-to header, add it by clicking Customize in the filter drop-down (see picture).

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Thank you. That was non-obvious information for me!

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The "Reply to" header contains a space which is not allowed. Reply alone does not work. Neither does Reply-to. Running the filter on the Junk folder produces nothing in the log.

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Nonsense. "Reply To" contains no extra space in the email address.

The "Helpful reply" and the "Chosen solution" postings above contain good advice.

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"Reply to" has a space between the y and t. Custom filter does not allow a space.

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Do you mean that Thunderbird cannot create a working filter for the Reply To field?

Modified by David Spector

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A custom header doesn't allow a space between words, but I don't see any multi-word header titles in the message source (Ctrl+U) with spaces - it must be a standard that - replaces spaces.

Modified by sfhowes

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Solved. Although the header is shown as Reply to, the Message source has Reply-To

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How do I see the "attached screenshots" in this thread? They are all too small to read.

I have this problem too. Filters have never worked for me.

Modified by Purebeads

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To see images on this website, click them with your mouse.

Filters work almost perfectly for me (there is a bug when trying to match an exact string). Why don't you just list the specific problems you have and other users will tell you how to solve them? Or search the Web for tutorials and help about Thunderbird. There are many clear explanations on the Web already, probably for Email Filters, too. It is true that Thunderbird seems not to have a good Help file. Sorry for that.

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Purebeads said

How do I see the "attached screenshots" in this thread? They are all too small to read.

Did you click on them.

Modified by icedancer459

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I'm getting a message saying that Thunderbird has blocked remote content in this message -- but what does Thunderbird have to do with it? I'm using Firefox, not Thunderbird.

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Oh I see. That was the first screen shot.

In the second screen shot, shouldn't I choose "Match ANY of the following" if I want to apply the rules individually and not as a group?

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Not exactly. "Match ANY" means that the results include matches to any of the words that you list, even if the match is to just one of the words. "Match ALL" means that the results include matches to every one of the words that you list. You will get fewer matches (more specific matches) if you select Match ALL.

Match any is the "OR" operation (A or B or C: any of them).

Match all is the "AND" operation (A and B and C: all must be present somewhere in the text)

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Match ANY or Match ALL actually refer to the multiple rules that can be 'stacked' as in the attached picture. Rules can be added or removed by clicking the + or - buttons. 'Match all messages' applies the filter action to all messages, no matter which rules are defined.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Filters_(Thunderbird)

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Let me explain the problem I've been having.

I use my filters on spam only. Thunderbird is set up to move all my spam to the Trash folder, where I then examine them and delete them, and I want to reduce the amount of spam emails that I sort through, so I use filters also. For example, I will never want to look at any message that has the word Viagra in the From field or the Subject field, so I don't even want to look at those emails.

I was setting up my filters to delete when Manually Run and also when Getting New Mail. What's been happening is that the emails aren't being deleted when I get new mail. They're just being put into the Trash folder. Now, I have my filters set to activate AFTER determining the junk status. Is that why they aren't being deleted? If I set the filters to determine the junk status BEFORE filtering, will they be deleted?

Thanks.

(I don't want to hear any criticisms for using filters on junk mail. I don't want TB to delete ALL my junk mail, so I have to use filters.)

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Purebeads, I use filters successfully to screen out all emails I don't want, including but not limited to spam. They work perfectly, and I set up all of them the same way: I select the text in the From, Subject, and, if necessary, Body that identifies the email, then I set the "Perform these actions" to "Delete Message". Theoretically, I can look in the Trash folder once in a while to make sure I'm not deleting anything important (it works so well I rarely look in Trash).

I don't get the false positives that Spamassasin has since I only select criteria that I know will work.

Very important: I set the one or two options required to fully disable the Junk email training and moving. So, I can't answer your question because I don't try to use the Junk feature at the same time as Filters. The Junk feature obviously cannot function well if you think about how it works. But the Filters part, as I said, works perfectly. I rarely receive or see any spam. Of course, it is also necessary to NEVER post your email addresses on the Web. Best of luck!

Modified by David Spector

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Are you saying that when a filter deletes an email, it isn't actually deleted? It just goes into the Trash folder?

It appears that that is my problem. Can I set the filters to actually delete emails, so I NEVER have to look at them, even when I go into the Trash folder?

I'll have to look at the settings.

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