Creating Mail Filters in Mozilla Thunderbird

Having a big flow of e-mail's dropping in your inbox can be time consuming to read, to deal with this and save yourself some time, and be able to read the right e-mails first, you might want to add a filter so Thunderbird can place the different mails in different folders. In this article I will try to show you how to make such a filter.

First thing you need to do is create a new folder, I will use the folder "Sales" as the target mail folder.



As you see I've highlighted "Local Folders", right click in "Folders" menu and choose "New folder", you will now get this window:



Name your folder (I used "Sales", choose whatever you like), choose where it should be located and press "OK". If things are done right, you should now have a new subfolder under "Local folders". You can also choose to make a new folder during the setup of making a filter, but I found it more easy to make the folder first.



Go Tools > Message Filters and you will get this window, to make a new filter press "New". As you see from the screenshot you can choose which account this filter will apply for. Pressing "New", you will get this window:



First you want to give the new filter a name, I use "Sales" for this example. Now, the settings are the real limit for what you want here. The best way is to explore a bit on your own for what settings you want. I made a filter which filters mail with comes to the mail address "sales@nidelven-it.no", and place them in the folder "Sales" and labels it as Important (gives it a bright, easy to spot color). When you are done, press "OK", and you'll get this window:



You now have a new filter. :) You can change the settings/add/remove/disable/enable filters as you like. Play a little, explore. :)

Run a filter on existing E-Mails

Often, you will find yourself creating rule as a response to a flow of email. Fortunately, Thunderbird lets you run your filters on pre-existing emails: select your filter, and click the "Run Now" button.