If you open the filters window, Tools/Message Filters, select the _TEST filter, which folder is selected in the 'Run selected filter(s) on' box at the bottom? If you select the Sent folder, and then Run Now, are the messages copied to the relevant folder? As I understand it, filters only run automatically on the Inbox, and since a sent message is never in the Inbox, your filter doesn't automatically copy anything.

sfhowes,

If you open the filters window, Tools/Message Filters, select the _TEST filter, which folder is selected in the 'Run selected filter(s) on' box at the bottom? If you select the Sent folder, and then Run Now, are the messages copied to the relevant folder? As I understand it, filters only run automatically on the Inbox, and since a sent message is never in the Inbox, your filter doesn't automatically copy anything.

running the _TEST filter manually does work on _any_ folder including "Sent", but what's the point of the "After sending" checkbox if filters only run automatically on the "Inbox"? Messages composed and sent surely rarely ever end up there.

Actually, on https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/organize-your-messages-using-filters it is claimed about filters marked using the "after seinding" checkbox that "these filters only apply to an email being sent" -- as opposed, for instance, to the "when you receive new mail" option, for which it is explicitly said that it filters marked accordingly will exectued "when you receive new mail" and that "filters are applied to new mail in the inbox".

So I guess either the documentation is misleading or I do have some non-obvious problem with my setup...

Cheers --

-- Torsten

A filter set to run 'After sending' on Inbox messages might be useful for filing or marking messages that have been received and then replied to. Plus, there is a setting in the Copies & Folders section of Account Settings to have replies (which are not all sent messages) placed in the same folder as the message being replied to, which is usually the Inbox. The documentation could very well be misleading, if the author misunderstands or fails to test how filters actually work. The important distinction is automatic vs. manual: filters run automatically on the Inbox, or manually on any folder.

A filter set to run 'After sending' on Inbox messages might be useful for filing or marking messages that have been received and then replied to. Plus, there is a setting in the Copies & Folders section of Account Settings to have replies (which are not all sent messages) placed in the same folder as the message being replied to, which is usually the Inbox.

Seems not to work either, even after changing the target folder for sent messages to my IMAP inbox. Anyway, wouldn't it be a bit weird to have *out*goint messages ending up in the *in*box...?

The documentation could very well be misleading, if the author misunderstands or fails to test how filters actually work. The important distinction is automatic vs. manual: filters run automatically on the Inbox, or manually on any folder.

Is there *really* no way to have filters run automatically on *any* outgoing message? It would make organizing mails so much easier if it was possible to automatically sort sent messages using the same filter rules used for sorting incoming mails into different folders...

Cheers --

   Torsten

It may seem odd to you to keep sent messages with received ones, but that is very common for users to store them in the same folder, if not the Inbox, to keep an entire thread in one place.

When you create a filter, the account is selected at the top of the Message Filters window - there is no choice of folder, as the Inbox is assumed. At the bottom of the window it's possible to run selected filters on any folder, but that is only done manually, not automatically. It seems to me that having automatic filters on sent mail is far less urgent than on received mail, and manual filtering is sufficient.

You can add comments and a vote to this request for enhancement:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1625265

It may seem odd to you to keep sent messages with received ones, but that is very common for users to store them in the same folder, if not the Inbox, to keep an entire thread in one place.

I know, and although I don't currenlty use this mode of organising my mails, I might adopt it some day.

When you create a filter, the account is selected at the top of the Message Filters window - there is no choice of folder, as the Inbox is assumed. At the bottom of the window it's possible to run selected filters on any folder, but that is only done manually, not automatically. It seems to me that having automatic filters on sent mail is far less urgent than on received mail, and manual filtering is sufficient.

I agree that automatic filtering incoming mails is more urgent than filtering outgoing mails, but I don't concur that manual filtering is sufficient for sent mails. It requires just too many mouse clicks, and there's a always a (big!) chance that you just forget to apply those filters manually.

But anyway...

You can add comments and a vote to this request for enhancement: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1625265

...thanks for the link, I just commented on that request. (Still trying to figuer out how to upvote, though...)

Cheers --

 Torsten