Emails are not blocked. Emails arrive on server and get downloaded when thunderbird connects to server. After downloading where are those Junk emails located - in what folder?

If you set up your Junk Controls correctly and then trained Junk to recognise it by selecting the email and clicking on 'Junk or right click on email and select 'Mark > 'As Junk' then after a short while Thunderbird will start to recognise those and similar as Junk and will move them into the Junk folder.

There is absolutely no point in setting up a single messge filter to deal with a specific email address when those emails will probably modifiy their email address. Message filters are best used to move good emails into specific folders and Junk Controls are best used to deal with Junk.

Let's check your Junk Controls. Right click on mail account and select 'Settings' select 'Junk Settings' make sure the window is expanded to show all details. Post an image of the Junk Controls window for that mail account.

This was partially helpful, but not totally. You see, I'm 83 and not a "techie." My son largely has set up my systems. I do not have a "junk" file, but rather a "bulk mail" file which is where the junk stuff comes in. I have been faithful in marking (using the button) "not junk." I was unaware of the "Mark" file. I don't know what most of the stuff is in those flip down files (and quite honestly not interested). Now I know where that is and I will use it. But I still don't have a junk file and don't know how to set one up. I just "delete" the junk that piles up in my "bulk mail" file each day. Then it goes to "Trash" which automatically disappears in a day or so. I still don't understand why Thunderbird cannot just delete everything coming in starting with Medic. That seems so simple to me.

I wish my spam/junk/UCE was so predictable as yours appears to be. If you really are getting spam with the word "medic" in the sender's address then it sounds as if it should be easy to filter.

However, I think the filters work on the stated email address of the sender and not the supposed name. If "Medic" is the display name and the address is something else, then the filters may not detect it.

For obvious reasons, spammers try to make it hard for us to use filters to block their wares. Ther are unlikely to use consistent and predictable "from" addresses as that would make the job of filtering all too easy.

If you'd like to forward one of these messages to me (preferably as an attachment) I can have a look to see if you stand any chance of filtering it. But as advised by Toad-Hall, I'd suggest that marking as junk is more likely to be successful in the long run.

xenos at gmx dot co dot uk

I'd guess that you're using an email service provided directly or indirectly by Yahoo. They use the term "Bulk Mail" and you need to understand that they decide what to put into the Bulk Mail folder. This is done before Thunderbird even gets to look at it. And since Thunderbird's filters work on what arrives in the Inbox, they won't see these messages since Yahoo (or whoever) have already moved them along to the Bulk Mail folder.

If they are moving good messages into Bulk mail, you need to go to your email provider's webpage and see if there is any way to influence their spam recognition system. I repeat; they decide what goes into Bulk Mail. There's nothing Thunderbird can do to influence this behaviour.

Thank you to Toad-Hall and Zenos for your helpful suggestions. The problem is not, as you note, easily solved. I am working with the suggestions each of you have sent. If the "mark as junk" doesn't work after giving it some time, I will see what Yahoo can do. It wastes a lot of time for this 83 year old widow to have to spend time doing this and that with messages that are totally inappropriate: Viagra and Cialis, meet some girls from Russia, or collect $5 milllion dollars, but first send me . . . , etc. Thanks again.