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Message Filters

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  • Last reply by Lucster

Lucster
Lucster
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Two major issues with the way Thunderbird handles Message Filters:

  1. 1: Is there a way for Message Filters to apply globally to all mail accounts? It seems highly ineffective to protect myself from spam and phishing in one mailbox only to have the same attacks remain in other folders. If a global filtering list is not possible, is it at least possible to have a "Copy filter to..." function to save having to manually (and tediously) recreate them?
  1. 2: Until recently, the spam and fishing emails that were correctly managed in my main mailbox were deleted (as requested in the message filter I had created). Suddenly, about 3 or 4 months ago, they started being sent as "New" into the Spam folder of my Local Inbox. Refer back to #1 above and you see my frustration because now I've got spam and phishing emails that were properly dealt with in my main mailbox but now are circumventing the protection and now sitting there waiting for me to fully recreate all my filters again.
Two major issues with the way Thunderbird handles Message Filters: #1: Is there a way for Message Filters to apply globally to all mail accounts? It seems highly ineffective to protect myself from spam and phishing in one mailbox only to have the same attacks remain in other folders. If a global filtering list is not possible, is it at least possible to have a "Copy filter to..." function to save having to manually (and tediously) recreate them? #2: Until recently, the spam and fishing emails that were correctly managed in my main mailbox were deleted (as requested in the message filter I had created). Suddenly, about 3 or 4 months ago, they started being sent as "New" into the Spam folder of my Local Inbox. Refer back to #1 above and you see my frustration because now I've got spam and phishing emails that were properly dealt with in my main mailbox but now are circumventing the protection and now sitting there waiting for me to fully recreate all my filters again.

Chosen solution

Filters are defined for each account, but they can be copied between accounts or profiles by copying the msgFilterRules.dat file that is in every account subfolder of Mail (POP) or ImapMail in the profile.

Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open Folder. Close TB before editing any files.

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All Replies (4)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Suluhisho teule

Filters are defined for each account, but they can be copied between accounts or profiles by copying the msgFilterRules.dat file that is in every account subfolder of Mail (POP) or ImapMail in the profile.

Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open Folder. Close TB before editing any files.

Lucster
Lucster Mwenye swali
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Thank you sfhowes. I've successfully followed your instructions and will try to get in the habit of doing these steps every time I modify one of my filters. Still not 100% sure about my 2nd part so I'll hold off a bit before flagging this as solved.

Matt
Matt
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Any attempt to manage spam using filters is destined for failure. They are professionals making a living and getting around spam filters. SO unless you want a full time job you really do not stand a chance.

Once you actually get to using the learning spam / Junk filter in Thunderbird your life will get easier and the need to copy filters to multiple accounts will basically cease to exist.

Lucster
Lucster Mwenye swali
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Sorry to say, Matt, but since I turned OFF the "learning" spam filter and applied sfhowes' solution, everything is working perfectly. I'm actually receiving my non-spam mail in my Inbox (crazy, right?) and my filters are successful at actually nuking the spam before it even gets anywhere. I believe these AI learning features will be the death of Thunderbird which is quite sad because it's the nonsensical AI of Google Mail that drove me to Thunderbird in the first place.