I'm trying to set up Thunderbird to copy the pdf attachment to a local file server directory then move the email out of my inbox, to a archival folder (from where it can be deleted in about month or the original accessed if needed). I'm using IMAP so the inbox cleaning functionality benefits all devices I access my email from.
The FiltaQuilla addon enables saving attachments to a directory, it works when run manually but when run automatically as a message is received no attachment is saved. I believe the problem is thunderbird runs the filter before the attachment is downloaded. I think it worked better when set up as a Pop mail account however I have not fully tested that as pop is not a useful configuration for my application.
So I suppose my questions are
- Is there a way to force thunderbird to download full IMAP messages?
- Am I doing something wrong? Does this work for other users?
- Is this beyond ThunderBird or FiltaQuilla? If so does anyone have suggestions for a better platform?
Filters in Thunderbird should execute in the order they are listed however FiltaQuilla executes asynchronously. As as result in the following filter
Code: Select all
{Wait for items referenced in search to be available}
From is MyHostedFaxServer@theirURL
Subject starts with "Fax from"
Attachment Status is has attachment
{Perform actions (in stated order)}
Mark as Read
{Wait for above to complete}
{Wait for attachment to download}
Save Attachment to \\MyServer\ReceivedFaxes
{Wait for file write to complete}
Move Message to zFaxProcessed on FaxEmailAddress@myEmailHost {an IMAP subfolder}In practice it does not work using FiltaQuilla because the components run asynchronously, without waiting for input data to be available or the proceeding operation to finish. This creates a race condition or in the above pseudo code "Wait for" is implemented as "Don't wait for".
The proposed work around for combining moves with complex actions is to:
- apply filter getting new mail "Filter after Junk classification" rather than "Filter before Junk Classification".
- And replace "Move Message to" with "Move later"
- no document is copied to network drive and
- email in Thunderbird zFaxProcessed subfolder on FaxEmailAddress@myEmailHost has unknown or zero length [until "Repair Folder" is run in ThunderBird, as reported by other mozillaZine users).
Also FiltaQuilla bug saving to network drives has persisted since at least 2010, causing the leading double backslash is converted to a single backslash on reloading. Fortunately this can be readily circumvented by mapping the network drive to a local drive.
Although there appears to be many outstanding filter issues
I have looked at AttachmentExtractor which had good attachment renaming capabilities but is designed to run interactively and is no longer maintained.
