1558956 - Request: allow filters to select emails based on info in the header of the email

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, enhancement)

Description

[Bart]

Attachment: HeaderContains.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0

Steps to reproduce:

This is a request for new functionality. I hope I'm posting it in the right area. If not, please let me know whereto post it.

My request: I'd like to create filters that select incoming emails based on information in the header of the incoming email.

Actual results:

(To my knowledge this functionality doesn't exist)

Expected results:

I hope that the following functionality can be added.

I would like to create filters that select incoming emails based upon information in the header of the email. I assume that this almost the same as filters that select emails based on information in the body of the email.

To clarify better I added a photoshopped image.

To illustrate: I'm emailing with someone in a country where freedom of speech is under pressure. I want to be sure that the emails I receive come from him. His IP address appears in the header of the emails he sends and I'd like to filter on his IP address. If the email comes from one of the IP addresses that he usually uses, I'd like to move the incoming email automatically to a special folder. That should tell me in a glance that the emails come from him and not from an authority that gained access to his email account.

Comment 1

[Benjamin Flanagin]

Good news barencor.

There is already a way you can do this in the current versions of Thunderbird, and probably some of the earlier versions as well. (not sure how far back)

At the bottom of the list in your image you should see a "Customize" option. There you can add any header option you are looking for. This is a bit better than say asking for everything in the header as it might lead to false positives, and that would defeat the purpose.

Comment 2

[Bart]

Attachment: CustomizeFilter.png

Comment 3

[Bart]

Hi Benjamin,

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it a lot.

I do have the option "Customize" and I added a screen copy. However, I have no idea how to use that window. I can type "Header" underneath "New message header", as I did in the screen copy, but somehow this doesn't give me the feeling that this new option will also look at the header of my incoming emails. I tried it, but the filter didn't do what I was hoping for.

Would you be able to let me know how the "Customize Headers" window works?
(If however, you're not familiar with the "Customize Headers" window in detail, I understand.)

In any case, thanks a lot!

Sincerely, Bart.

PS:

• I hope that this post doesn't come across as unpleasant, but I'm now in the dark.
• Consider me a gamma-tester. :-P
• I'm still using Thunderbird version 52. With the last version, I think that's 60, I get the message that my password is incorrect when sending emails and when checking the box "save password", even when my password is correct. Thunderbird version 52 works as a jiffy on this point. (Nope, this is not a complaint. It's a clarification why I'm still on 52.)

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

There should be examples listed in https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=filter+custom+header+thunderbird

Comment 5

[Bart]

Hi Wayne,

Thank you for your time and effort too. I did what you suggested and the search results that I get are:

Custom header filters in Thunderbird not working - Super User
https://superuser.com/questions/1026375/custom-header-filters-in-thunderbird-not-working

Message filters with use custom header entries does not work
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=368180

Filter for content not working with custom "header" named "Body"
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666525

Thunderbird Run Now Filters Fail on Custom Headers in IMAP Messages
http://turbulentsky.com/thunderbird-run-now-filters-fail-on.html

After-the-fact Filters on custom header won't match for IMAP messages
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/119899

True, some of the search results are pretty dated, but these are the search results I get. None of these results explain to me how to use the "custom" option. Do these search results mean that I should forget about the "Custom" feature? Or can someone write me what to fill out in the fields of the "Custom" window to filter on the IP address of the sender?

I hope that this post doesn't come across as unpleasant. It's just one of the situations that a regular user can bump into. (As I wrote before, "Consider me a gamma-tester". ;-) )

Thank you all for your time and effort, I appreciate it.

Bart.

Comment 6

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

You add the name of the header into the "Customize Headers" box, like X-Bugzilla-Component which is a header occurring in bugmail. To our knowledge, filters work on custom headers.

Comment 7

[Bart]

Hi Jorg,

Thank you for your post. That was exactly the missing piece of the puzzle at my side. I tried it and it works like a charm.
I wrote a little help text. Let me know if it's useful that I post it here.

Cheers, Bart.