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Filters do not run until mailbox is opened manually

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

mikirby
mikirby
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All of a sudden today, emails are not being filtered until I open the inbox. Then, all of a sudden, the mails which have built up in the inbox for the last few hours suddenly get filtered into all the folders they are supposed to go to, and I receive the alerts that they've arrived, all of which they're supposed to do when they arrive, not wait until I manually open the inbox to trigger a filter.

This is a major problem for me. I have clients who I need to respond to promptly, and the way I know I have emails from them is that the emails appear in their client folders. If I have to open my inbox manually to get it to filter, then I will spend my whole day checking my inbox every 5 minutes, and I can't do that as I have actual work I need to do.

I am now several hours behind on my email, I have clients who think I didn't respond to them immediately. This is a huge problem for me. This whole system worked fine until yesterday and I haven't changed a thing about my Thunderbird setup.

How do I make sure my filters are always working as they should without me having to remember to check that they don't suddenly need to be manually triggered?

All of a sudden today, emails are not being filtered until I open the inbox. Then, all of a sudden, the mails which have built up in the inbox for the last few hours suddenly get filtered into all the folders they are supposed to go to, and I receive the alerts that they've arrived, all of which they're supposed to do when they arrive, not wait until I manually open the inbox to trigger a filter. This is a major problem for me. I have clients who I need to respond to promptly, and the way I know I have emails from them is that the emails appear in their client folders. If I have to open my inbox manually to get it to filter, then I will spend my whole day checking my inbox every 5 minutes, and I can't do that as I have actual work I need to do. I am now several hours behind on my email, I have clients who think I didn't respond to them immediately. This is a huge problem for me. This whole system worked fine until yesterday and I haven't changed a thing about my Thunderbird setup. How do I make sure my filters are always working as they should without me having to remember to check that they don't suddenly need to be manually triggered?

All Replies (2)

mikirby
mikirby Question owner
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16 hours and only 1 view????

Are these forums, and product, dead?

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 25 Contributor
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You only posted this question yesterday. So no Not dead, but the volunteer unpaid helpers who you expect to contact you are working several hours a day on this forum dealing with all kinds of requests and do need to know how to resolve your particular issue. Sarcasm towards those people is not well received.

Email that is downloaded into Inbox is supposed to get auto filtered on download. So, it sounds like you get notification that new mail is on server - probably because server supports IDLE and email is Pushed, but it's not actually fully downloading until you select the imap Inbox folder at which point it synchronises with server and downloads mail which in turn gets filtered accordingly.

Do you compact the Inbox on a regular basis ? For example: do you exit Thunderbird each day and have the setting to Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on Exit ?

Any move of email or deletion of email will put email in respective folder, but it also leaves a copy of the original in the Inbox. It is 'marked as deleted' and hidden from view. You need to compact the Inbox to keep it cleaned up, so it less likely to get corrupted.


Check some settings:

  • Right click on mail account name in Folder Pane and select 'SEttings'
  • Select 'Server Settings'
  • Select 'Check for new messages at start up
  • Select: Check for new messages every eg: 10 minutes
  • Select 'Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive'
  • Select 'Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on Exit.
  • Click on 'Advanced..' button
  • Max number of server connections to cache - by default this is usually set on 5
  • Please lower this to 3 and click on OK
  • Select 'Synschronisation & storage'
  • Click on 'Advanced..' button
  • Make sure the 'Inbox' checkbox is selected to download - so full copies get downloaded.
  • click on OK

Under 'Disc Space' section

  • Select : 'synchronise all messages locally regardless of age'

REstart Thunderbird.

Did you already have all of the above settings or did you need to make any changes ?