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Home > Documentation > Email > Webmail > Creating a Message Filter

Documentation - Email - Webmail

Email Documentation Home | Clients: Configuration, Pine, Thunderbird, Webmail | Operating Systems: Mac, Windows | Junkmail | xMail

Webmail: Creating a Message Filter

You can create custom message filters using the Webmail Options pages. To edit a filter after you've created it, see Editing and Deleting Message Filters; to change the order in which your message filters act, see Reordering Message Filters. When creating a filter, be aware of the following:

  • The Forward to action, sends the message directly to the specified email address but does not save a copy on your system.
  • You can mark the status of a message (Deleted, Read, Draft, Flagged, Answered) only when the Move to option is being applied by the filter.

To create a message filter:

  1. From the Options pages (Webmail) click Message Filters.
    Result: The Message Filters page displays. If you have existing filters, their order and profile displays at the top; you may have to scroll down to reach the Filter Conditions - Add New Filter area.
  2. In the Filter Conditions - Add New Filter area specify the following:
    • The first radio button sets an initial parameter for the conditions you must specify, choose either:
      • If all of these conditions are met: Filter action is done only if all of the specified conditions are true.
      • If any of these conditions are met: Filter action is done if at least one of the specified conditions is true.
    Or you can select the other radio button:
    • Apply to all incoming messages: Filter action is done on all messages regardless of conditions. This option is deselected (disabled) by default. If you select this option, the top radio button action trigger is automatically deselected. This option is useful as a final filter in a series of filters to direct all other incoming mail to be acted upon.
  3. Next, choose a filter object:
    • From: The sender field.
    • To/CC: The recipient's (does not include BCC recipients) address lines.
    • Subject: The subject line.
    • Body: The text of the message and text attachments including Plain text, HTML text, and Rich Text. If you're looking for an 8-bit string, this option may be best. Note: This option may take longer than the Body (raw MIME data) option as all data must be converted to Unicode (with whitespace removed) before the search can be performed.
    • Body (raw MIME data): The text of the message as you would see it if you clicked Open in Webmail for that message. If you're looking for a word (ASCII text) in a message, this option may be best.
    • Body (binary): The binary value of the string that you want to find. For example, to use this option to find the "Yen" character (hex A5), you would enter \xA5. Note: Use backslashes (\) to separate characters; backslashes (\) not followed by "x" are ignored; A-F part is case-insensitive.
    • Return-path: The return-path address.
    • X-Uchicago-Spam: The spam rating that Junkmail judges the message to be.
    • X-Uchicago-Approved-Sender: This header is added if someone in your Approved Senders list in Junkmail sent the message.
    • X-BeenThere: This header is added whenever a message passes through a mailing list. There can be multiple X-BeenThere headers in a message.
    • List-Id: The Mailing List ID as specified in RFC 2919.
    • Mailing-List: An alternative Mailing List tag.
    • Received: The received headers.
    • Attachment MIME Type: The attachment media type. Choices include the top level MIME types: text, multipart, message, application, image, audio, video, and model; use the matches rather than the contains content condition (next bullet item) and search for something specific like "application/vbs" or "image/jpeg", and so on. For more information on MIME and filtering attachments, see About MIME and Filtering Attachments.
    • Attachment file name: The attachment name. You can use the asterisk wildcard (only with the matches and does not match options); for example, *.vbs.
    • UCE (Junkmail score): An integer; this filter object is not implemented on our system. Disregard this object.
    • Message size (bytes): The message size can be kb, mb, or gb.
  4. Next, choose a content condition for the filter object:
    • contains: The specified parameter must contain the text you enter. Wildcards are not honored; for example, the filter condition: "contains" "doc" would be met with any of these words: "doc", "document", "undocumented", "doctor", and so forth.
    • does not contain: The specified parameter must not contain the text you enter. Wildcards are not honored.
    • matches: The specified parameter must match the text you enter. Wildcards may be useful; for example, the condition "matches" "Dr. Spock" would only be met by "Dr. Spock," but the condition "matches" "Dr. Sp*" would be met by "Dr. Spock", "Dr. Spark", "Dr. Sproul", and so forth.
    • Does not match: The specified parameter must not match the text you enter. Wildcards may be useful.
    • is less than: The object value must be less than the integer you enter. Wildcards may be useful.
    • Is more than: The object value must be more than the integer you enter. Wildcards may be useful.
  5. Your final filter condition option is a value for the filter object. Enter the text, integers, MIME type, or file name you want searched for and acted on in the appropriate box. You can use the following wildcard characters with the matches or does not match options only:
    • Asterisk (*): Matches any sequence of zero or more characters. Example: to find all attachments with filenames ending in ".vbs", use these filter conditions: Attachment file name: matches "*.vbs"
    • Question mark (?): Matches any single character. Example: to find all messages from "Maria" or "Marie", use these filter conditions: From: matches "Mari?"
  6. In the Filter Action area specify a response, select one:
    • Move to <folder> (default): Matching messages are moved to the specified folder. If you choose this option, you may also choose to have the message flagged by selecting one of the following for Mark:
      • Deleted , Read, Draft, Flagged, Answered : Flags the messages as specified.
    • Forward to: Matching messages are forwarded as specified.
    • Forward excerpt to: The first several lines of matching messages are forwarded as specified. Use this option in conjunction with wireless devices.
    • Discard (message is irrevocably lost): Matching messages are deleted.

      Note: We do not recommend using the Discard Filter Action unless you are absolutely sure that you are willing to lose any messages that match this filter. Messages that are Discarded are irrevocably lost and are irretrievable. Use at your own peril!
    Additionally, you may specify:
    • Remove attachments that meet attachment conditions: Attachments that meet the specified attachment conditions are removed and a message is appended to the body indicating that the attachment was removed. This option is deselected (disabled) by default. To enable this feature, select the checkbox.
    • Do not apply any more filters to this message if action is taken: If the message qualified for action by the filter, any filters in order below the filter are not applied. This option is selected (enabled) by default. To disable this feature, clear the checkbox.
    Once you have created your filter, click OK.
    Result: The system accepts the settings and a description of the filter appears above the Filter Conditions box. Incoming messages and attachments are filtered and acted on as directed.

About MIME and Filtering Attachments:

"MIME" stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension; a standard for multipart, multimedia electronic mail messages and World-Wide Web hypertext documents that provides the ability to transfer data such as graphics, audio, and fax. All MIME parts of a message are considered attachments and filtered if the Attachment MIME Type parameter is specified. If the message is not MIME, it's entire body is considered a single text/plain "attachment".

You can discover the MIME Content-Types used in a message by viewing the full message; this can be done in Webmail by clicking Open when viewing a message. Each part of the message will have a Content-Type specified such as text/plain, text/html, multipart/related, multipart/alternative, image/gif, and so on.

 

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Last updated: 7/15/08