quickfilters

What's New / Highlights
  • Prerelease version for testing with Thunderbird 115 on Github Minimum Thunderbird version required: 112.0b1
  • Version 5.5.4 quickFilters is now compatible with Thunderbird 102
  • Version 5.5.1 added Domain extractors to custom filter templates
  • Version 5.4 Support copy to folder instead of move in assistant
  • Version 5.3 quickFilters is now compatible with Thunderbird 91
  • Version 5.2 New: Sort Search Terms in Filter.
  • Version 5.1 WIP: Fixed Merge filters and clipboard icons in filter list. Fix for Thunderbird 85beta for "Run Filters on Folder"
  • Version 5.0.2 Migrated for Thunderbird 78
  • Version 4.4.1 Keyboard shortcuts for Run Filter actions.
  • Version 4.2 Fixed integration in QuickFolders (Current Folder Bar)
  • Version 4.1.1 Platform fixes and improvements for troubleshooter
  • Version 4.0.2 Support for Thunderbird 78
  • Version 3.12 Made quickFilters compatible with Thunderbird 67 - future proofing for 2020 is ongoing!
  • Version 3.11 Streamlined filter creation: optionally auto-run filters after creation.
  • Version 3.10 Options to skip Edit / List displays
  • Version 3.9 Link to YouTube demonstration videos
  • Version 3.8 Added troubleshoot tool for filters that do not run automatically.
  • Version 3.7 Added UI for default "when to run" settings.
  • Version 3.6 Custom Templates: Support collecting multiple email addresses.
  • Version 3.5 Backup and Restore feature.
  • Version 3.4 Created quickFilters Pro version.
  • Version 3.3 Insert new Filter in alphabetical order.
  • Version 3.2 Add option to run filters on read IMAP mails
  • Version 3.1 Fix for Tag Listener
  • Version 3.0.2 Support for Move to Folder context menu
  • Version 3.0 Support for Move to Folder context menu
  • Version 2.9 Custom Templates
  • Version 2.8 Optional Merge Auto-Select.
  • Version 2.7 Sort Filters feature.
  • Version 2.2 Support creating filters based on Tag changes.
  • Version 2.1 Cloning filters. Group Filter template from multiple mails
  • Version 2.0 Added Toolbar and Postbox compatibility

Thanks for installing quickFilters!

Here is a video that shows how to set up some filters. Anybody can do it, and if you put in a few minutes to understand it you will be creating filters within seconds which are going to tidy up your inbox automatically:

This extension makes it much easier to create new mail filters, by simply dragging emails into folders and let quickFilters do the "heavy lifting" of filling in the sometimes complicated settings in the filter settings. Filters are usually used to move emails to other folders, automatically, so it makes sense to show Thunderbird "what to do" by dragging one typical email manually, rather than filling in all the complicated details.

How to use quickFilters

With this, it is very easy to create new filters very quickly.

It will prefill the destination folder and other relevant fields after you have dragged the email into a different folder in the tree.

  1. Click on the quickFilters button on the main toolbar and select Start Filter Assistant
    main menu: filter assistant
  2. The button will change it's envelope color to red and Thunderbird will show be a sliding notification at the bottom of the Thunderbird window:
    filter notification
  3. Drag an email into a folder on the left hand folder tree - or move it by other means (such as QuickFolders quickMove method). This will open the Filter Assistant screen.
    filter assistant
  4. Select a template (e.g. "based on Sender") and click [Create New Filter...] - in the example I have pulled an email into the QuickFolders folder. See below for a detailed description.
  5. Next, the Edit Filter Rules dialog is displayed - as you can see it already tries to "guess" what you want the filter to do when it should be applied, based on the email that you dragged to the folder or tagged:
    filter rules
    Since in this case I chose "Based on Sender", it will pull all conversations from and to joe@quickFolders.com into the QuickFolders folder. No need to select the folder (as it has been done automatically) or to enter any condition (this is based on the template that you have chosen).
  6. Now tweak the filter as usual and click Ok to save it (and try it out in the Filter List)
  7. You can also click Cancel to not create the filter
  8. In the last step Thunderbird's list of filters is shown.
    list of filters
  9. You can repeat the process from step 2 to create more filters
  10. When you're done, click the quickFilters button and select "End Filter Assistant" - unless you want to create more filters .
    disable assistant

The Filter Assistant

On this screen, you select what type of information (search term) will trigger the filter action, and what kind of actions the filter will carry out. A search term is a 'fact' that applies to the incoming email, such as 'the sender is fred', 'the mail is tagged as important', 'this message is more than a month old' etc.

quickFilters Assistant

The action can be 'move message to freds folder', 'tag message as personal', 'set message low priority', 'mark message with a star'. These are based on the email that was used to trigger the assistant.

actions and steps

The "Next Steps" options control what other screens are shown. "Filter Rules" is highly recommended so that the resulting filter will be displayed on screen. "Filters List" can be helpful for testing the filte immediately by clicking the [Run Now] button.

On the bottom of the assistant screen you can see some heading detail (such as sender and subject line) to help decide on what the correct template may be. The templates offered here make this a much easier and quicker process and fill prefill the new filter accordingly. Preview

Filter Templates

This section describes the different patterns offered to create filters based on the moved / copied / selected email. I will probably add more templates in future, if I get good requests from the users. You can use the issue tracker to suggest new templates.

You can create your own, user defined Custom Templates with a quickFilters Pro license.


Based on Sender (from)

Probably the most used pattern: this will retrieve the sender's email address and paste it into the from and to filter conditions fields. This way a whole conversation with the sender will be moved to the new folder.

Based on Recipient (to)

Similar to 'Based on Sender': use this when you move an email from yourself to somebody else. This will retrieve the recpient's email address and paste it into the from and to filter conditions fields. This way the complete conversation with the contact will be moved to the new folder.

Mailing List

Similar to Based on Sender, but it doesn't fill the 'to' condition field.

Subscriptions - By Subject [Keyword]

This will look for special "bracketed" expressions, e.g. [amo-editors] or {Mozilla} and create a filter condition based on these; a lot of mass email is set up using this pattern, so it is really easy to use.

By Tags

Uses the tags of the email and adds them as filter conditions.

Merging Filters

This is a special screen on the filter assistant which is shown if there are already filters that carry out the same action as the one you want your new filter to do. It can also be invoked using the 'Merge Filters' button on the filter toolbar. Note that you can only merge filters that have the same action (such as move to a certain folder or add a certain tag), quickFilters makes sure that no other filters can be merged together.

quickFilters Merge

Mail that's already moved

What if already have moved my Mails to another folder? Chances are that sometimes forget switching on the filter assistant, or we have already moved a lot of mail around manually. In this case the quickFilters version 1.6 now adds a context menu to the message list:
Creating a filter from a moved message
just right-click the mail you want to choose for your filter, and then click on QuickFilters: "Create Filter from Message...". Alternatively, simply select the message and use the "Message" menu.

The Message Filters List

QuickFilters adds more functions to the filter list dialog - which becomes necessary after creating many filters was so easy.

The biggest new feature here is the addition of a Search box, which allows filtering the number of results. I was able to submit this as a patch to Thunderbird itself and it is now part of the main product. With quickFilters, search has many new features which can be selected with the search settings button:
search by target folder

Message Filters Toolbar

toolbar

The toolbar has some useful functions that Thunderbird was missing:

Also you can now move the filter to the top of the bottom of the list. This is actually significant as the order you see on screen is the same as the order in which the filters are executed. This also means, if a filter on the top moves a message from the inbox then the filters below will not get a chance to execute on this message; as the filters are only executed on messages in the inbox, they will simply be ignored. Therefore it is very important that it remains easy to re-order the relative positions of the filters. This also works while the search box is active.

Preferences Dialog


Actions Tab

Actions Tab - sets global preference of quickFilters.

quickFilters actions