Filtering, but still going to Junk
I have a number of filters set up, but they don't work properly. I've tried numerous things to debug.
- Tried adding the sender to my Contacts - Made sure I had "match any" checked - Made sure I'm not double-filtering anything - Tried starring those emails
My main problem is that emails I need are being sent to Junk and not remaining in my inbox or going to the folder I specified. For example, I have "filter after Junk" and "From contains XXX" then "move to Inbox". But it winds up in Junk anyway. Gah! What am I doing wrong? I'm missing critical emails!!
Please let me know if you have any suggestions! Thank you.
All Replies (3)
Hmm, "filter after junk" and then "move to Inbox" is unlikely to work. You let the junk controls look at it. If they decide it is junk and move it to Junk, then it is gone from the Inbox and so your filters don't get to see it.
If by some chance it does get moved back the the inbox by a filter, my experience is that it will just get assessed by the junk controls yet again, and most likely re-assessed as Junk.
In this example of positive vetting, where you identify it as a good message by its sender, I'd set it to filter before the Junk Controls.
In theory, a message should be immune from being classified as Junk by dint of it being from a sender known to you and who is in your Address Book. In my experience, the Address Book "whitelisting" function doesn't seem to be 100% reliable. However, do go to Account Settings, select the account and open its Junk Settings panel. Do you have a box there listing your accounts, with checkboxes? Are the relevant accounts ticked? I have found that after working through all my accounts and ticking these checkboxes, the next time I look some accounts have become unticked.
I have to say I thought this list was a feature of an add-on. I do have something else that lets you select which address books should be used for auto-completion, on an account-by-account basis, but I have just restarted Thunderbird in its Safe Mode and that list is still there.
Thank you, @Zenos - those boxes were not checked. I will monitor the next few days and hopefully that will solve my problem.
I also did not realize that the filters only worked on the inbox, so thanks also for helping me understand why the filter wouldn't move it out of the Junk and into the Inbox.
You can run filters on other folders, but you have to start them manually. I have a button to run filters on the current folder, and the FiltaQuilla addon that adds a "Folder name" filter rule, so you can restrict the scope of some filters so they only run on the appropriate folder.
For instance, I have two filters that are designed to run in one of my Junk folders. One deletes all messages put there by my mail provider's spam tool, and the second applies "train as junk" then moves the remaining messages to the mail provider's "learn spam" folder. I wouldn't want either of these filters to run on other folders!
Modified by Zenos