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Applying filters


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I'm a longtime SpamCop user (reporting on the Website), but am a new "[at]spamcop.net" and "[at]cesmail.net" email account user. In the webmail system, I've created some filter rules, but they don't seem to be working, in that messages matching my rules are still winding up in the Held mail folder.

I'm using the default Filter Options of "Allow filter rules to be applied in any mailbox?" and "Show the filter icon on the menubar?" (the other two options aren't checked)

Here's an example of one of my rules:

Any of the following: Received Contains webmail.aol.com

Deliver to my INBOX

Stop checking if this rule matches

So, I sent myself a test message using AOL's webmail system (which seems to be blocked by SpamCop's BL) and instead of going into my Inbox, it's in Held. While viewing my Held folder, I try clicking on the icon to "Apply Filters on Held Mail" and after some delay (I've got 570 messages currently Held), the message in question stays in the Held Mail, while I'd expect it to move to my INBOX, because of the filter. Why doesn't it move?

I have other filters for some listserves, similar to this:

Any of the following: Sender Contains list-address[at]listserverdomain.edu

Deliver to my INBOX

Stop checking if this rule matches

And yet I found two of my list messages in my Held Mail, despite that filter (and even after re-applying the filter using the icon). What am I doing wrong?

David T.

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The reason that messages get straight into Held Email is that they are being blocked by the bl before they hit your inbox. You will need to whitelist the list or sender to get them to bypass the bl and go straight to your inbox.

I have a filter that I manually apply to my Held Email - it was deleting emails that Yahoo!'s Bulk Email detector was flagging and marking. I needed to hit the filter button to get it to run, but it works fine, deleting those matching emails.

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(replying to my own post, with a little clarification)

What I *want* to be able to do is to open my Held Mail (in webmail...not in the VER system) and apply filters that would move false positives (desireable messages) from Held Mail to INBOX. Right now, that's NOT what happens when I apply a filter in Held Mail by clicking on the filter icon.

Another option would be to run a search for such messages, but the search options seem a bit limited. For example, there doesn't seem to be a way to search the "Received" headers (such as for "webmail.aol.com", which is currently producing the most false positives). I see options to search:

Received On

Received Until

Received Since

but no "Received from"... Why not?

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Another option would be to run a search for such messages, but the search options seem a bit limited. For example, there doesn't seem to be a way to search the "Received" headers (such as for "webmail.aol.com", which is currently producing the most false positives). I see options to search:

Received On

Received Until

Received Since

but no "Received from"... Why not?

Try entering this as a self-defined header search. The received filters you're looking at don't actually refer to the Received: header, they refer to the date on the email.

JT

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Try entering this as a self-defined header search.  The received filters you're looking at don't actually refer to the Received: header, they refer to the date on the email.

No, wait....there's some confusion. When I referred to the limits of the search function, I was not talking about filtering rules....I was talking about the limited drop-down list of fields that can be searched in the actual "Search" function. There are two issues here:

1. I can't make my existing filters work, even when manually applied.

2. The Search function doesn't seem to allow a search in the Received fields of the messages.

Those two aren't related.

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Try entering this as a self-defined header search.  The received filters you're looking at don't actually refer to the Received: header, they refer to the date on the email.

No, wait....there's some confusion. When I referred to the limits of the search function, I was not talking about filtering rules....I was talking about the limited drop-down list of fields that can be searched in the actual "Search" function. There are two issues here:

1. I can't make my existing filters work, even when manually applied.

2. The Search function doesn't seem to allow a search in the Received fields of the messages.

Those two aren't related.

The drop-down box has a field called "self-defined header". That's what I'm talking about. Have you tried that?

As far as the filters not working, please post the exact details of a filter you have set up, what you expect it to do, and at least a snippet of headers from an email that you expect to be filtered but isn't. If we can't figure it out here, I'll take a look in your account, but just "the filters don't work" isn't enough for me to do anything.

JT

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The drop-down box has a field called "self-defined header". That's what I'm talking about. Have you tried that?

Wait...I think there's still confusion about which part of the SC webmail interface has the "self-defined header" option. I found that in the drop-down box of fields for the filter rules, but *not* when simply doing a search of email in any given folder. When doing a search through the messages, here's the drop-down list for the fields:

Select a field

---------

From

To

Cc

Bcc

Subject

Body

Received On

Received Until

Received Since

There isn't any "self-defined header" there. So, I ask, how would I search for any messages that happened to come from the (seemingly permanently BL'ed) "webmail.aol.com" system? Not filter.....search.

As to my filtering problems, I *did* post examples of my filters....they're further up in this very thread. However, I think I've just figured out what went wrong. While defining my filters, I selected the default:

Do this: Deliver to my INBOX:

option. However, that apparently simply leaves the matching messages in my Held Mail (which is part of my INBOX). What I *should* have done was to change the "Do this" to "Deliver to mailbox" and then select "INBOX" from that drop-down. Now that I've done that, I can apply my filters and they actually do what I want them to do, so this part of my problem is over.

The only remaining question has to do with the ability to search (not related to filtering) the Received headers of messages in my Held Mail.

Thanks for your assistance,

David T.

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Wait...I think there's still confusion about which part of the SC webmail interface has the "self-defined header" option. I found that in the drop-down box of fields for the filter rules, but *not* when simply doing a search of email in any given folder.

OK, I agree. You can't do a search for random text in the header fields.

As to my filtering problems, I *did* post examples of my filters....they're further up in this very thread. However, I think I've just figured out what went wrong. While defining my filters, I selected the default:

Do this: Deliver to my INBOX:

OK, there's a little bit of history there. This version of the webmail system originally didn't allow you to filter anything except your Inbox. That meant that "Deliver to my INBOX" was kind of redundant. It didn't really do anything. The only thing it was good for was you could also tell it to stop processing rules. So, you could make exceptions to rules further down in the list.

Now, we modified the webmail system so that messages in any folder could be filtered. However, apparently the target you're talking about still just doesn't do anything. (If the text said "Deliver to the current folder" then that would accurately describe exactly what it does). Specifying to deliver to the Inbox the way you described fixes the problem.

JT

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