dlevens Posted June 23, 2004 Posted June 23, 2004 Has anyone figured out a way to filter email at the server level so that you dont have to setup rules on each email client you use? I only need like 15 filters but I use webmail at work, outlook or thundermail at home and would like a way to setup the filtering at the server so I dont have to set it up on each client. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this? Dennis Quote
dlevens Posted June 23, 2004 Author Posted June 23, 2004 Mike, Email filtering allows me to specify which mailbox to put the email into but does not allow me to specify which folder inside the mailbox to put it into. For instance I want to say all emails sent to tch@**** to be direct to myname@**** but then go one step futher and say put it inside the TCH Forum folder. So far the only way to do this is to setup filters in squirrelmail and then also set up filters in thundermail, but then when I decide to switch email programs I have to setup all my filters again. HOWEVER, I just thought of a new question. What is the difference between forwarders and email filters? For instance I have one mailbox that I have all of my email forwarded to. And when I sign up a new account or go to some website that wants to know my email address I just tell them my email address is theircompanyname@****, then I go into forwarders and add a new forwarder for theircompanyname@**** to forward to myname@**** But now that I think about it, would it be better if I instead just use email filtering to do this? Dennis Quote
TCH-Dick Posted June 23, 2004 Posted June 23, 2004 Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no way that I know of to specify a subfolder you want your e-mail to go into from the server side. Quote
webmedic Posted June 23, 2004 Posted June 23, 2004 well for servers in general or your setup? It would apear in your setup that this is true but I build email servers and it is very easy to do filtering with programs like maildrop that allow custom rules and folder filtering. Quote
dlevens Posted June 24, 2004 Author Posted June 24, 2004 I read somewhere that something like procmail or something like that could sort mail into folders at the server level? BTW why is it that some of my posts, even though I always enable replies to be emailed to me, do not notify me? Fortunately I stumbled back across this post and found two replies but I did not get emails telling me you both replied. Dennis Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted June 24, 2004 Posted June 24, 2004 HOWEVER, I just thought of a new question. What is the difference between forwarders and email filters? For instance I have one mailbox that I have all of my email forwarded to. And when I sign up a new account or go to some website that wants to know my email address I just tell them my email address is theircompanyname@****, then I go into forwarders and add a new forwarder for theircompanyname@**** to forward to myname@**** I prefer using the forward option rather than the filter option in this case. This way if you start receiving SPAM sent to your forwarded address you just delete it and all the SPAM stops. Quote
dlevens Posted June 24, 2004 Author Posted June 24, 2004 I prefer using the forward option rather than the filter option in this case. This way if you start receiving SPAM sent to your forwarded address you just delete it and all the SPAM stops. Bruce, But you can also just delete the filter in the same speed and manner as deleting a forward, no? The only difference I can see between these two is forward only allows you to forward mail based on the TO: field where as filter can do from field, subject, body etc. Dennis Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted June 24, 2004 Posted June 24, 2004 If you are filtering you are going to be using an email address you created a mailbox for, correct? Otherwise it's going to your catch all email account which I have set to :blackhole: Quote
webmedic Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 not exactly You can filter based on rules so for instance you could pre filter all your mailing lists into different folders. You could also use it to move your spam to a spam folder. I use the spam one on my own servers. I do allot more with it but for the context of this forum it doesn't matter so I wont go into it. We need to stick to what these servers do. Quote
dlevens Posted June 25, 2004 Author Posted June 25, 2004 Bruce, I believe you can filter an email that does not exist. What I meant was a filter can take the place of a forward. So lets say I temporarly want amazon.com to reach me so I tell them my email address is amazon@**** Instead of making a forward of amazon@**** forward to mymainaccount@**** I could use filtering instead and say all emails to amazon@levens.com go to mymainaccount@**** thus doing exactly the same thing as a forward. Which brings me back to my original question, what is the difference between the forwarders option and filtering since you can do everything you can do in forwarding in the filter area. Seems redundant to have both. Which is why I am doubting myself and thinking I am missing something here. Dennis Quote
TCH-Rob Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 (edited) Instead of making a forward of amazon@**** forward to mymainaccount@**** I could use filtering instead and say all emails to amazon@levens.com go to mymainaccount@**** I must be doing something wrong. I set up a filter for a nonexistant account of amazon@**** to go to a_valid_account@****. I sent a test message and got nothing. I create a forward of amazon@**** to go to another_valid_account@**** and it works. I remove the forward and nothing goes through. Thanks for making me check my main account though, I had over 33K messages in there, thought I had it set to blackhole. Edit: I found where it went. It was in my default folder with all of the other unassigned email sent to my domain. Edited June 25, 2004 by TCH-Rob Quote
dlevens Posted June 25, 2004 Author Posted June 25, 2004 hmm, not sure what you are doing wrong. But I just tried it again and it worked perfectly. I set amazon@**** to forward to a mailbox and amazon@**** is not a valid address and I do not have it in my forwarders. I removed the filter and got the same result setting it up as a filter. I assume you set it to contains and not EXACT? sometimes the email address is contained in " " or <> so exact wont work. But use a filter contains on the to field. I know it works cause I just did it. Dennis Quote
TCH-Rob Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 I used exact. Changed it to contains and it works. That said, isn't redundancy a good thing? More than one way to bury a body kind of thing. Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 More than one way to bury a body kind of thing. I agree, find what you are comfortable with that works for you and use it. I choose to use forwards instead of filters. Quote
dlevens Posted June 25, 2004 Author Posted June 25, 2004 ok works for me. Just found it odd that I could not figure out the difference between the two, always makes me assume I am missing something or some function. I wonder if there is a difference in processing time, like filters hit before forwarders or vice versa. Anyone have the time for a test? Maybe I can find some time later and figure that out. Dennis Quote
TCH-Rob Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 When I got the filter working they both hit the server almost instantly. Quote
dlevens Posted June 25, 2004 Author Posted June 25, 2004 I decided to do a test so I setup both a forwarder and a filter for the same email address. In every test the filter reads first. I set up a forward to go to one account and a filter to go to another account and when ever I send an email to the test account the filter always read it first and sent the email there. Just in case anyone wanted to know And if you ever forget which one reads first just remember the Alphabet, Fi for filter comes before fo for forward. Dennis Quote
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