How can I copy filters between accounts?
I seem to remember, back when I first switched my email to Thunderbird about two years ago, that I could duplicate message filters between email accounts rather than recreating them manually. Now I cannot find any way to do this. I'm reinstalling everything on my system, and while I copied my Thunderbird folder in its entirety from my backup, the filters carried over on only my primary account; my other accounts have no filters attached to them.
I have nine different email accounts set up in Thunderbird (and no, I cannot consolidate them or forward some of them into another, as these need to remain separate for a variety of reasons), and about half of my filters should run on all nine accounts (they apply color-coded tags based on source and keywords). I tried a filter import-export extension, but it wouldn't import anything. And I really don't want to manually recreate two dozen filters across nine accounts, one filter at a time.
If I can't copy or duplicate the filters from within Thunderbird, is it possible to go into the file system and copy individual files within the Thunderbird folder to accomplish the same result? I haven't identified anything in that folder that would allow this, but that doesn't mean it's not there—only that I don't know how filters are stored.
Suggestion for a future revision: Change filter management so that multiple accounts can use the same filter without having to duplicate anything. You can have a master filter list where you set up the actual filters, and each email account has a window where you choose which filters that account uses and what order they run in for that account. I can envision exactly how it should look and work, but I don't have the programming skills to write it myself, either as an extension or for inclusion into the main codebase. (I'm not even sure the way I would want this to work can be done as an extension, as it seems to me it would require a deep under-the-hood change in how filters and accounts are matched.) I'd be happy to provide interface mock-ups and detailed descriptions of the desired functionality, if there's someone interested in doing the actual coding.
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Yes you can, The filter-files are in your "profile"\mail\"account"\ and in "profile"\imapmail\"account"\ and are named msgFilterRules.dat You can open it in a texteditor (Notetab) and edit or you can copy from one account to next. Be a bit careful so you dont use filters where you dont want to.
Thanks. That resolved most of my problem. I still have one account that's refusing to cooperate. It's a Yahoo IMAP account. I can copy the file containing the needed filters into its folder, but the filters don't show up in Thunderbird (on that account only—they show up fine on the other accounts).
Furthermore, I tried creating a filter to test on that account—one which was designed specifically to hit several messages I could see in that inbox. Running that filter on that folder did nothing (and I know that running a filter on a folder is flaky—I selected all messages in that inbox and ran the filter on "Selected Messages"). I activated the filter log, and after multiple attempts to run that filter, the log remained empty. By comparison, I did the same thing with a different account's inbox, and the filters worked as expected.
And here's the best part: even after all of this, I went back and checked the msgFilterRules.dat file in my Yahoo account's folder, and it's still the one I copied in there. It has not been replaced or modified by the test filter I created—even the timestamps are unchanged. So for some reason, Thunderbird is completely ignoring anything filter-related on that account, to the point of not even saving that account's filters in the right place (I have no idea where it's storing the test filter, but it's saving it somewhere—after quitting and relaunching Thunderbird, that filter is still in the list). But five days ago, it was filtering that account correctly. (Even the tags that were applied to messages in that inbox have disappeared—they're all untagged. Manually tagging them still works.)
So now what? Do I need to recreate this account? It's IMAP, so all the messages will be re-downloadable from the server. But I don't want to take that time if it's not going to help. Any ideas?
I don't have a Yahoo-account. but if you rename /delete the existing filter-file you must NOT have TB running. If it is it will recreate a new file with the old filters. Otherwise it will create a new empty filter-file.
Let TB create a new empty one, make a simple filter. If it works edit. Copy and past from your old one. Filter starts with name and ends after conditions, type 17 (before junk-filter), type 48 (after junk-filter)
I just wonder, If you set the yahoo-account to keep messages for this account on this computer or not? That could explain loosing all tags and no filters. ( tools/account settings /synchronizing & storage )