1602704 - allow filters to run periodically for other folders than inbox

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Filters, enhancement)

Description

[motz]

Attachment: thunderbirdFilter.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0

Steps to reproduce:

I am on windows 10x64 with TB 68.3.0esr (64bit) and I have set a message filter on a folder in local folders to delete messages with certain header information.
I have ticked the "manually run" and the "periodically, every 10 minutes" option.
All filters work when I run them manually but the periodic check does not work at all.

Actual results:

I sent some test messages to myself and waited for 30 minutes for the periodic filter to do its job but nothing happened.
Then I ran the filter manually and the messages were gone.

Expected results:

Messages should be deleted by periodic check as if filter run manually

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Periodically only applies to the Inbox, so far. See bug 864187. I guess we can use this bug to track making that possible.

Comment 2

[motz]

If the periodic filter only runs on the inbox the filter dialog should show this more clearly.
It is confusing that filters can be set on specific folders but that the checkbox applies to the inbox only.
To me a periodic filter makes most sense on folders not being the inbox, as there is no other good trigger on these folders.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

(In reply to motz from comment #2)

It is confusing that filters can be set on specific folders but that the checkbox applies to the inbox only.

Filters can't be set on specific folders so far, only the manually run ones, and that it specified by the user). we have no infrastructure to store specific folders as part of filter definition yet.

Also the other filter types/triggers do not run on arbitrary folders, e.g. "when getting new mail" runs only on Inbox too (on POP3, on IMAP it can run on other folders if some pref is set). The same with "after sending". So "Periodic" running on Inbox only without indicating is in the UI is no novelty.

Of course it would be good to improve upon this in some way.

Comment 4

[Dennis]

Until the infrastructure can be enhanced to allow Periodically run filters to run on other folders the user should be better informed that it applies to the Inbox only.
Perhaps change "Periodically, every 10 minutes" should be changed to like: "Periodically, every 10 minutes (Inbox only)" or ???

Comment 5

[Thilo [:ThiloteE]]

Agree. Change name to "Periodically, every 10 minutes on Inbox" or "Periodically, every 10 minutes (Inbox only)" until this issue can be solved more adequately.

Comment 8

[Robert Krawitz]

My use case is to actually move messages out of my junk folder into my inbox (from which further filters may be applied). My personal mailbox (an alumni account) is hosted on Office 365, which has a junk filter that cannot be bypassed (it's possible to make it even stronger, or to permitlist particular addresses, but it cannot be turned off). Unfortunately, it catches a fair number of false positives and false neutrals (not to mention plenty of false negatives get through), and if I have to check my junk folder constantly, it rather defeats the purpose. I don't use an automated junk filter at all, and if I did, I'd set it up with a folder with a different name.

I actually run my own email server; for whatever reasons of my own I don't want it to be primarily stored in the cloud. Until October 1 I could handle this with fetchmail, which can fetch multiple folders, but Microsoft has disabled basic authentication and now requires oauth, which is very hard to automate. So the architecture I came up with is essentially to use Thunderbird as a jury-rigged fetchmail, moving email between the two accounts. Ideally I'd run a separate instance (profile) of t-bird headless and start it at boot, as a daemon. If it can't automatically migrate mail from the junk folder, though, running it headless is not feasible.

The real problem is that the spam filter can't be disabled, but unfortunately that ship has sailed.