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message filter don't see the message content, only From and Subject. How to solve?

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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when using message filter to remove unwanted mails, the filter will not scan the message text when so asked, but will only scan From and Subject. I've tried various ways but there is no way to find words in the message text and use them as keywords to remove certain emails.

when using message filter to remove unwanted mails, the filter will not scan the message text when so asked, but will only scan From and Subject. I've tried various ways but there is no way to find words in the message text and use them as keywords to remove certain emails.

All Replies (6)

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It would be useful to see an image of the Message filter you have created, otherwise it is complete guesswork on what you currently use in Message Filters.

If you use 'Match all of the following': Then it means all the conditions you set must be true in that email, so if you have set three conditions and eg: one condition is not met then it will not get filtered. If you use 'Match any of the following': Assuming eg: you have three conditions, If any of them is true, whether it is one, two or three, then it would get filtered. I would also use: 'Body' and 'Contains' and type a word


Message Filters are best at sorting good wanted incoming new mail into various folders to save you time and helping to organise and presort emails.

However, if you are trying to use this for what I would describe as 'Junk', then why ? Thunderbird already has 'Junk controls' which are designed to deal with Junk'. However, you do need to make sure they are activated and trained. This does not take long to train. Junk / spam emails have so many variants for the same that it would be too complicated and require loads of time and probably hundreds of message filters, so just it is much easier and quicker to use the built in system.

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Yes, I use it both to sort mails and to remove junk. I get lots of junk in a number of forms with highly different content. Mostly those who wish to make me click on a link and who have found my email on our website and are bombarding me with sexual invitations, and I wish not to see them at all. Not have them in my computer. enclosing screen shot (in swedish).

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I was sceptical of your claim and have just built a body text filter and it works perfectly.

Are there any "exotic" characters involved? Accents etc? Any that are specific to your language?

Can you confirm these are email messages, not news? (The newsreader in Thunderbird doesn't download the body part until you read it.)

Have you set Thunderbird to download the whole message? It can be set to get headers only.

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Yes, of course, you may be sceptical. But in my case it didn't work not matter how I tried. Yes, it is set to receive the entire email. And no, if the message body contains the word sweetie and I try sort out this email, it will not do it. But if this word is the Subject, then it will work. I tried to add a jpg screen shot, but it didn't want to upload it. After 15 mins of uploading I sent the reply anyway.

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Do please try again; image uploads often stall here.

No-one can help you if they can't reproduce the problem. I've tried and I can't. Therefore seeing your filter to understand what else it might be doing could be useful.

PNGs make better screenshot images than JPEGs.

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As a heads up, the OP has chosen to start another identical question and has added an image showing the message filter. This is the link: