Automatic Message Filters are Effectively Useless on Gmail Accounts if the mails are set to bypass the inbox by server side filters
Categories
(Thunderbird :: Filters, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: steven, Unassigned)
References
(Blocks 2 open bugs)
Details
(Whiteboard: [doc-wanted])
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0
Steps to reproduce:
The message filter system in Thunderbird is broken on all Google Mail (Gmail) accounts. This is caused by the way Google sorts incoming mail on their end. Since not all incoming mail enters the Gmail inbox by default on Google's end, this means that any filters set up for a Gmail account in Thunderbird will only filter a super small subset of the incoming mail or nothing at all.
Actual results:
Some incoming mail is sorted into All Mail on Google's end. This means that any message filters will not run on those new messages.
Expected results:
One possible workaround is to disable this behavior on Gmail itself. However, most of the stuff I've found on the topic is several years old and reports wildly varying results (everything from "it works" to "it destroyed my inbox and dumped literally everything into All Mail").
Regardless, we need to figure out a way to filter incoming mail with this default Gmail "feature" in mind.
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Comment 1•5 years ago
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I think you mean bug 294632.
There isn't much else Thunderbird could do if mails aren't arriving in the Inbox, but put elsewhere.
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Comment 2•5 years ago
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Magnus may be correct, in which case this "problem" isn't specific gmail.
But in case not, please know that your information is fairly vague and forces the reader guess. Some examples:
- "Steps to reproduce" is not a description of what you think is the problem nor what you see, it is to be a list of steps of what you do. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/QA/Bug_writing_guidelines regarding "precise steps to reproduce" that someone else could follow to reproduce your issue. A working actual example often helps.
- If you utilize server side filtering (which is what gmail provides) then why must you resort to also using client side filtering?
- Zero idea what you are talking about under "expected results". Disable what exactly? What topics (provide URL)? (Please don't make the reader guess)
I think this bug is invalid. It is also not gmail specific. Our filters execute on the inbox and send folder, unless manually run. If mail is not there it is not processed. As Magnus points we have a bug to make mail "per folder. So really I think this should be closed as invalid. It is an unreasonable expectation that Thunderbird should somehow "find" all new mail, work out which was affected by server side filtering and filter it.
I would suggest a more realistic approach would be to disable the Google priority inbox and other server side filtering so the mail ends up in the inbox if you want to filter it.
Setting here https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/inbox
and here https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/labels
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Comment 4•5 years ago
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Sorry about the ambiguities. I'll try to be a little more specific. I also have a disability that can affect my communication at times, so bear with me.
By default, Gmail has this filter set up where it sends incoming email that it sees as "priority" to the Inbox folder. Everything else is sent to the All Mail folder. You're right in the sense that it does occur outside of Thunderbird on a server and isn't exclusive to Gmail (I think Outlook.com has something similar). I'm using Gmail in this example since it's the most widely used free email service.
The bug is more about Gmail's server filtering being more invisible to someone that isn't as tech savvy as we are. Since Gmail is a widely used email service, someone non-techincal could add in a Gmail account and add a bunch of Thunderbird filters to it, expecting it all to work out-of-the-box. There is really nothing in the Thunderbird program that mentions server side filtering could prevent Thunderbird's filters from operating. This "filter by default" behavior is also pretty exclusive to Gmail and Outlook, so expecting a new user to turn off settings in Gmail before opening Thunderbird for the first time is absurd. There should be a warning when a user adds a Gmail account stating that Thunderbird filters will not work correctly until the relevant settings are disabled in Gmail (and other services that may be affected).
It is an unreasonable expectation that Thunderbird should somehow "find" all new mail, work out which was affected by server side filtering and filter it.
I'd normally agree. But since this can affect a large amount of users, we should explore some workarounds such as the warning I mentioned above. Another possible workaround I just thought of would be to move all unread messages for the given Gmail account to the Inbox in Thunderbird, then run the filters. But then again, Google has that weird "All Mail" folder that could impede this idea.
As for sources, I think it was an old Lifehacker article from 2014. I don't have the exact URL as I was looking for a workaround before filing this bug and didn't think to bookmark my sources.
Hope this all helps.
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Updated•5 years ago
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Updated•5 years ago
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Thunderbird knows that there is new mail in the folder and that it is unseen. Should we have an option in filters to include all folders in the account in a filters scope excluding any "destination" folder?
I think this bug is an enhancement request for Thunderbird filters.
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Comment 6•4 years ago
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(In reply to Matt from comment #5)
Thunderbird knows that there is new mail in the folder and that it is unseen. Should we have an option in filters to include all folders in the account in a filters scope excluding any "destination" folder?
I think this bug is an enhancement request for Thunderbird filters.
this is covered at least in part by bug 422729 and friends
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Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 7•1 year ago
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(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #6)
(In reply to Matt from comment #5)
Thunderbird knows that there is new mail in the folder and that it is unseen. Should we have an option in filters to include all folders in the account in a filters scope excluding any "destination" folder?
I think this bug is an enhancement request for Thunderbird filters.
this is covered at least in part by bug 422729 and friends
That bug got duplicated and ultimately ends up at Bug 1708981 - Thunderbird doesn't check my Fastmail account automatically for new mail (actually, not really Fastmail specific). Not sure that it helpds this case.
Steven, do you still see this problem?
Resolved per whiteboard
Description
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