Junk filter and Address Book

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Windmill
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Joined: March 2nd, 2018, 5:54 am

Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

I am using Thunderbird for many years now and am quite pleased with it. There is however one thing that I am less pleased about. And although I have been searching around, I haven't found a good solution.
What annoys me is that email, coming from addresses which are listed in my Address Book are considered junk by the junk filter and moved from the Inbox to the Junk folder. I have verified that this move is being done by the Thunderbird junk filter, not by the email service provider.
I tried to correct this by going into Edit -> Account Settings -> Junk Settings -> Enable "do not automatically mark mail as junk if the sender is in Collected Addresses or Personal Address Book."
Unfortunately did this not work as I had hoped: some of the incoming messages are still being moved to the Junk folder.
Is a "stronger measure" available to ensure that messages from trusted addresses are never moved from Inbox to Junk?
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DanRaisch
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by DanRaisch »

How is the account set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP?
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

DanRaisch wrote:How is the account set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP?
The account is set up as IMAP.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by DanRaisch »

Right click on the name of the Inbox folder in the left hand pane of the main window and select "Properties" from the context menu. Then click on the "Repair folder" button.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

DanRaisch wrote:Right click on the name of the Inbox folder in the left hand pane of the main window and select "Properties" from the context menu. Then click on the "Repair folder" button.
Should I do this once messages have inadvertently been placed in the Junk folder? At the moment I don't have such messages so I can't see whether repairing the folder has any influence.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by DanRaisch »

No, the point of that procedure is to reindex the files that might be involved in identifying Junk messages. You'll want the indexes updated in preparation for the receipt of new messages.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

OK, thank you for your advice. I will monitor for a while and report my findings.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

@DanRaisch almost one week later and the issue has not manifested itself any more. Thank you very much for giving the "golden tip".
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DanRaisch
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by DanRaisch »

You're welcome.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

One month further and unfortunately do I have to report that the issue has returned.
Messages from senders which are in my address book are labelled as spam. Clicking on "this is not junk" helps sometimes, but in most cases is it re-labelled as spam less than one minute later.
The "repair folder" suggestion, on the inbox, does not solve the issue anymore.
I wish that Thunderbird would have a setting such that messages received from registered senders are never subjected to spam filtering.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by DanRaisch »

First backup your profile -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
Close Thunderbird and navigate to your Profile Folder ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder ). Find the files with the extension msf, such as Inbox.msf. Note that there will be sets of two files with the same name but only one of these will have the MSF extension. Delete the files with the MSF extension. Restart Thunderbird, compact all folders, and see if things are back to normal.

Note that the MSF files do NOT contain your messages. They are, for lack of a better term, an index file and will be recreated by Thunderbird as required.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

Thank you for your continued support DanRaisch. I have followed your instructions: backup first, and exit Thunderbird. Then removed all msf files which I could find. Then restarted Thunderbird and do a full compact. This has re-created all msf files. I will monitor for a while to see whether this has improved the situation.
wsmwk
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by wsmwk »

(I lost a previous posting attempt so here is a shorter version)

Proper junk functioning depends on four areas, none of which have anything to do with mail indexes.
1. Addressbook entries (specifically no corruption)
2. Account Settings > Junk Settings
3. Options/Preferences > Security > Junk
4. code which operates on the above

In the past we've seen failure in all four areas.

If "whitelist" in #2 is failing then I suggest you first ensure the addressbook is not corrupted. Someone in the forums here may be better able to advise you, but iirc one way to ensure this is to export your address book to an external file and then reimport.
Last edited by wsmwk on April 16th, 2018, 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Windmill
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by Windmill »

wsmwk thank you for your suggestions. I have exported my address books to csv files. I get two files: Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses. Looking at the contents of these files I see no strange things: all email addresses are properly readable to me. I assume that the addresses in both books are supposed to be whitelisted and thus that messages coming from these addresses should not be classified as spam. This is what Account Settings -> Junk Settings indicates.
You mention at #3 Preferences -> Privacy -> Junk. I do see the Privacy tab, but do not see a Junk category or tab there.

The issue I am seeing seems not consistent to me. To give one example: I get notifications from YouTube when new videos are posted in some channels which I follow. This YouTube email address is in my address book. Some notifications appear in my Inbox, while other notifications are considered spam by Thunderbird and placed in the Junk folder.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Junk filter and Address Book

Post by tanstaafl »

"You mention at #3 Preferences -> Privacy -> Junk. I do see the Privacy tab, but do not see a Junk category or tab there."

I suspect he meant preferences -> security -> junk.

"To give one example: I get notifications from YouTube when new videos are posted in some channels which I follow. This YouTube email address is in my address book."

On my system "Do not automatically mark mail as junk if the sender is in" in the accounts junk settings lists both address books, but (if you use default settings) only the personal address book has a checkmark next to it. Check that the youtube address is in an address book that has a checkmark.
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