Is it possible to link (instead of copying) from my inbox to another folder (using filters)? So that if I delete an email in my inbox - the linked email in a filter folder also gets deleted?

i think you received a lot of help in this thread, and it's time to start putting in some effort yourself, no?
in other words, search thunderbird documentation on what exactly you can do with filters.
my guess is, nothing that involves creating symlinks.

I'm gonna say no. I don't see "link" in the options on the actions drop-down in the filers dialog box.

Why would you want two copies anyway? (Tho you could do that.)

• Create a filter that identifies those emails you want to delete.
• Uncheck Apply filter when getting new mail.
• Set the action to move the messages to Trash, if you don't need to review them, or to a "Hold" folder, if you want to review them before deleting.
• Run the filter over your Inbox "every few months"

Done deal.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Sean. That sounds about the best plan.

Glad to have helped.
I tend to sort mail on arrival to several different folders in a futile attempt to keep my inbox manageable. The main drawback is that now I have to check each folder when TB tells me there's new mail therein.

Checking extra folders is a big drawback alright.

How often are Thunderbird filters run if I uncheck the 'Manually Run' box?

if I know it well it will run automatically on every incoming mail.

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Ok, thank you pan64.

It'd be great to check if any filters are no longer needed (e.g. if you since unsubscribed from some newsletter email notification). Also, I notice that it's possible to add the same email filter multiple times by mistake - it would be handy to remove duplicates or at least sort the email filters in a-z order in order to more easily spot duplicates.

I see the filters in 'msgFilterRules.dat' within the .thunderbird home directory. How can I quickly check for duplicates in that text file? The email filters section are all on 1 line.

Edit: I tried this but it's not picking up any duplicate emails - even though I can see one at least:

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It was tedious but I just did a manual Ctrl-f search instead. There was just the one repeat.

A word of caution. Be very careful when peeking inside a Thunderbird profile. It's very easy to bork it. Lots of hidden dependencies. If you uncheck that box and uncheck the Getting new mail box, the filter will never be run...it's how one "disables" a filter without removing it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the tips, Sean.

Done! :-)

obviously use thunderbird if you can. if not.

yes, Inbox is a human readable text file. non-reable porttions are "uu encoded" (binary stored as 7-bit ascii)

there can be mail in your Inbox thunderbird DOES NOT show for various reasons

you can edit your inbox with a text editor

keep in mind that some of the tags X-UIDL X-Mozilla that you have to watch out for that can "hang thunderbird" if you leave dangling (make sure to delete all of each email)