One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Thunderbird
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AALLeeXX
Posts: 3
Joined: May 21st, 2016, 10:31 pm

One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Post by AALLeeXX »

Dear all,

I'm still annoyed by messages filters that apply only to individual account... Is it possible to define one filter that would apply on several or all accounts in my inbox ?
Currently I need to define the same rule for each account, which is pretty bothersome to maintain...

Any idea ?
Thanks,

Alexandre
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Post by tanstaafl »

The answer depends upon what type of accounts you have. You can configure POP accounts to use a global inbox. That hides the POP accounts in the folder pane, and uses the Local Folders pseudo account to store the messages. Local Folders supports message filters. However, IMAP accounts don't support a global inbox. I

view -> folders -> unified lets you create a unified inbox that contains all of the accounts inboxs, but when I create a message filter for it the same message filter is created for the first accounts inbox. So it doesn't look like a unified folder supports a single message filter that applies to all inbox folders. Your best bet might be to create/edit the message filters in one account and then copy the "msgFilterRules.dat" file stored in that accounts "local directory" to the other accounts "local directory". The local directory is specified in the accounts server settings, by the Browse button.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_Filters
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox
AALLeeXX
Posts: 3
Joined: May 21st, 2016, 10:31 pm

Re: One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Post by AALLeeXX »

Thanks for the reply. I found already first link but could not find the answer to this problem.

Sorry I forgot to mention, these are indeed IMAP accounts - which already are all in a unified box. But even so, when creating a filter for any of them, it requires to select a mailbox (one of the IMAP ones inside the unified box)...
Thanks for the tips, but not my preferred choice as I also have rule which do not need to apply on all accounts.
I feel it's just a design limitation :(
geoherdt
Posts: 1
Joined: April 19th, 2017, 1:04 pm

Re: One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Post by geoherdt »

My solution:
create a link pointing to one messageFilterRules.dat within the thunderbird mail account folder.
Rules will be then active for all folders.

If you need rules only for certain accounts you might to consider which header field can be used for uniquely identifying the account.
Add this condition to your specific rules.
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LIMPET235
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Re: One filter for all accounts, possible ?

Post by LIMPET235 »

Thanks for the reply, but this thread died almost a year ago.
Please....Check the date before posting.

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