Filter option "match all messages"

[mary_kennedy]

I am just converting over from Outlook and need to create a whole new set of filters. I am doing them as I get messages that need to be sorted. For the first two that I made, I checked the option "match all messages," thinking this meant APPLY to all messages. However when I ran the filters they cleaned out my inbox and I can't figure out where these messages went or how to find the.

I also don't see anywhere that tells me what this option means.

[nombredelusuario]

where these messages

I am confident they went where your filters told them to go

[makaiguy]

I've never found an occasion to use "Match all messages" because it give you a "hit" on all messages. When you select this option, all the message selection options are removed, leaving you only with the action choices -- in other words, all you can do is specify what to do with "all messages". Don't think I've ever seen this feature documented anywhere.

I'd guess it might be useful if you wanted to perform an operation on all messages in a folder, like tagging them all as "work" or something. I'd only see it to be of any value or use for manually running a filter on existing messages, not automatic running on all incoming messages.

[endolith]

Where is this "Match all messages" option? I don't see it. Trying to follow Note 2 for creating a virtual folder: https://cdn.rawgit.com/wangvisual/expre ... /help.html

[browser.tech]

@makaiguy

I was wondering what "Match all messages" in Thunderbird was for. I guess it might be useful as the last filter in a list. For example, you might move all the "good" email somewhere using the first several filters, then in the last filter use "match all" to move anything else that came in to the trash.

[DanRaisch]

Locking this thread as the original question was addressed 13 years ago. Please check the date of previous posts before replying.

[tanstaafl]

endolith:

tools -> message filters has "match all of the following", "match any of the following" and "match all messages" radio buttons.

Your https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/wangvisual/ ... /help.html link displays raw HTML. I looked at note 2 in https://github.com/opto/expression-search-NG instead. "Note 2: If you want search all folders using expression, you can create a virtual folder manually (Ctrl+Shift+F) with 'Match all messages', then using expression search in the virtual folder."

I'd normally create a virtual folder using a saved search folder. I think that is what it is suggesting you do beforehand with Ctrl+Shift+F. However, edit -> find -> search messages does not have the third radio button (match all messages) in version 91.2 on my system. You can do something like "Subject" "isn't" "xyz567abc" instead to get the same effect. I think you're asking questions about searching in a ancient thread about message filters. If I didn't answer your question please create a new thread.