Filters in Evolution
 

Hi,

I have recently started to use Ubuntu and, compared with Windows, it is very straightforward (so far!) and pleasing. However the one thing that I cannot sort out is the setting up of filters in Evolution so if someone could help before I get too frustrated and remove Evolution from my machine I would be very grateful.

I have two e-mail accounts and have no problems getting Evolution to check both accounts and put the e-mails from one of the accounts into a folder for that account. However, I receive a lot of e-mail from various people on the other account and have created filters to sort the incoming email on this account into the appropriate folders but they just will not work. For example if I create a filter with the sender's name as the criterion for sorting and a folder named for the sender the mail just goes into the inbox rather than the designated folder.

For example one filter could read:

"Sender contains david@somewhere.com move to folder David"

and another reads

"Sender contains margaret@somewhere.else.com move to folder Margaret"

Instead of going into folders "David" or "Margaret" they all go into the inbox.

Could some kind person tell me what I am doing wrong, please?

Chris

Highlighting these misplaced e-mails and clicking "Apply Filters" in the "Message" pull-down menu does nothing.

It isn't clear in the Evolution documentation whether the folders should be under the inbox or "On this Computer" so I have set them up on my desktop machine under the inbox and on my laptop "On this Computer" but the filters don't work in either case

I have exactly the same sort of set up on my Windows machine which uses Thunderbird and the incoming e-mails do as they are told. I can't see where I am going wrong with Evolution and don't know whether Ubuntu deals with e-mail differently from Windows.

If some kind person could suggest where I am going wrong I would be very grateful

Chris

You defined filters but are wondering why they seem to be not appied?
They will be applied for all future messages that come in.
If you want to apply the filter to messages already present, you select your inbox, then go to the menu:
Messages --> Apply Filters (not sure if I translated these correctly since I use a localized version)

HTH

If you feel that Thunderbird filters are working then why not use it on Ubuntu as well.
I use thunderbird on Ubuntu Gutsy and I personally find it much better.

Hi Jomen,

Thank you for your reply. I set up the various folders and filters before connecting to the internet and receiving any e-mail, thinking that once everything was set up and e-mail started arriving it would be sorted automatically into the various folders but it is not. I can't even sort manually. Highlighting the inbox or individual e-mails that have arrived and then clicking "Run Filters" produces no result. I might just as well not have bothered to have any filters if I have to move them all manually into various folders.

Sorry - I obviously did not read your post carefully - you said that you already did what I described.
I made my filters the other way around:
I select a message, then create a rule from that message (right click menu) - there are 3 options: create filter by topic, recipient, sender.
Then I selected/made the folder and was done - it worked every time.
There are many variants of rules to choose from: contains, ends with, starts with, is, is not, sounds like, sounds not like...
Maybe your rules are too restrictive/do not fit (the only thing I can think of - not to say you did it wrong)

Hello linuxlover.chaitanya,

Thank you for your message. I was thinking of doing just that but there is one thing that makes me cautious: after I had used Thunderbird on my Windows machine for a while I suddenly found one day that all my e-mails had disappeared and when I looked on the server they had gone from there too. I had specified when setting up Thunderbird that e-mails were to remain on the server so I don't know why they disappeared - maybe it was something to do with Windows as I often find that my Windows settings get mysteriously changed somehow (I am the only person to use my machine). I discovered afterwards that this had happened to several people.

Anyway I will give it a try when I pluck up the courage to try and install it. When one is used to the way things are installed in Windows, it is a bit of a surprise installing things in Ubuntu

Thunderbird is in Synaptic. So you really do not need much courage to install it. Ubuntu will do it for you. And as far as keeping mails on server is concerned, I have not faced such issue when I used that setting for a while.
I do not use that setting now as it negates the purpose of using POP mail server in my opinion. But you should not have any problems with thunderbird applying filters and keeping mails on server. Give it a try. May be your problems will be solved.

Hello linuxlover.chaitanya,

I have solved the problem! I have removed Evolution and replaced it with Thunderbird. The reason that I like to keep e-mails on the server is that sometimes I am in France and sometimes in England with a computer in both countries so if I want to check on an e-mail that I received while I was in the UK I can look at it again in France and vice versa.

I don't like laptops much and now that "Big Brother" in the UK has decided to check the contents of laptops I won't be travelling with mine!

Regards
Chris

Thats good that you have finally got through with your problem. And as far as keeping mails on server is the issue it was just my personal opinion. It was not meant to hurt you.

Hi there,

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem as Chriscrof: I have filters set up that do nothing to the messages that come into my inbox. For example, I get emails from many lists which I would like to sort into folders on arrival. I clicked on one of these messages in my inbox, which is addressed to something like "users@somelist@work.com", and select "Message -> Create Rule -> Filter on Recipients." I choose the appropriate options for the filter to take and apply it. However, these emails to the somelist@work email list continue to show up in my inbox with none of the processing I specified in my rule. It appears as if the filters do nothing.

I found the exchange in this post a bit hard to follow. I could not tell if there was a fix presented for Chriscrof's problem. The conclusion seems to be "install thunderbird," but this is not an option for me. Am I stuck with useless filters, or did I miss something in this post?

Thanks very much,
Adrian