What happened to my 85 emails in my INBOX when applying the message filters on this file
Yesterday I downloaded 90 emails from my mail server. Only 5 of them were filtered correctly.
Upon reviewing the remaining 85 emails, I observed that many of them "should" have been filtered. So I opened up the Tools - Message Filters and applied the filtering to the INBOX file.
Almost immediately, all 85 emails disappeared. They were not in the Trash folder, nor were they visible in any other folder or mail box that I could see.
It was recommended to apply the "repair" to the INBOX which I tried; However, all that happened was 318 older emails that I have processed a few days before reappeared in the INBOX. Which interestingly would not sort by the date indicated for the email; they would only sort by subject and sender.
It was further recommended to close TB, and delete the INBOX.msf file. Which I did do. In addition, I also restored the INBOX to the previous days file using my daily backup files. That file shows 101,076 kb of info contained in it.
I reopened TB to find once again nothing in the INBOX, and when I tried to re-run the get msgs aspect, the result was the system telling me there were no email messages to collect.
Yet I know the same 90 emails are still sitting in the mail server system.
Why did this happen?
Where did the 85 emails in the INBOX go to?
Why isn't the set of 2200++ email filters not automatically filtering all emails once they are collected, and distributing them to the appropriate email file folder / mail box?
What recommendations are available to help me resolve this situation and prevent it from happening again?
Also, I have a txt and html file of the 8 Jul 2026 filter report. Why can't I upload said files along with this set of information? Why are attachments only restricted to image files?
Thank
All Replies (3)
re: Why are attachments only restricted to image files?
because you need specific applications to open other types of files and this is a website. Safety is also a consideration when it comes to uploading files.
re: Why isn't the set of 2200++ email filters not automatically filtering all emails once they are collected,
That's a lot of filters just to move emails to folders, but maybe you have a lot of folders.
Filters run in the order listed and need to be enabled.
Without knowing the details of a failed filter, I cannot say whether it would or would not work correctly.
In 'Message Filters' - Did you enable the 'filter log' ? If yes, then it would list each filter action. It may reveal some useful information.
What OS are using ? what version of Thunderbird are you using? Are you talking about an Imap or Pop account ? Do the filters move emails within same account - just different folders?
Please upload image of first filter in list that failed to auto work ? Please open the Filter Log and locate failed filters and upload an image showing the failed filter details.
Chosen Solution
Yes I have 2200+ filters as I have over 80000 email files within various folder or sub-folders.
As near as I can tell, somewhere between the original conversion from Eudora7.01 to TB's V17.0.9, AND the confirmation that all of those filters were working "correct" at that time ... and then the subsequent updating process of installing V24 > V45 > V52 > V60 > V151 > V152 ... something, somewhere caused the TB filters to change. Maybe it was when one of those update versions change the "In" mail box to be called "INBOX".
Many of those filters were changed from the previously indicated mail box to the INBOX; or were changed to the Amazon mail box. That is why I found the 85 emails in the Amazon mail box; as the filters worked correctly, and filtered all the INBOX emails into the Amazon mail box.
As such, I am now forced to go back through and re-map most of the mail boxes to the correct folder/sub-folder/mail box. A bit of a pain.
In answer to your questions above: MS Win 10 OS and no I am not updating to a worthless V11; Logically I would be using the latest version of TB - V152; I use POP; Lastly, I currently only have one email account set up in TB. So yes it all within the same account.
Not much anyone can to about this as it is now just a manual process of correcting the filters to filter the emails to the "correct" mail box.
Thanks for the input and the nudging of my mind to resolve this problem.
Best wishes,
/s/ James T Saint, CCIM COO
If you're technically-minded and are handy with a text editor, you might be able to "re-map" things by editing the plain-text Filter Rules file directly. The file is called "msgFilterRules.dat" and there is one of them in each account folder in your Profile. This should probably be done with Thunderbird closed, and you should make a backup copy of the file before you start, as you can easily royally mess it up.
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