How do I find out why Thunderbird deletes some of my messages from one particular sender?
Thunderbird deletes (i.e. moves to the 'Deleted' folder) some of my messages automatically, even though they are 'good' messages. This applies to one particular sender only. I think I may have set a filter to delete messages with one or more of the words in the sender/From name. However, the words in the sender's name do not appear in any search of the filters by name. As I have several hundred filters set up, mostly to delete repeated spam automatically, I can't (easily) go through the detailed contents of each filter manually to find out which filter might delete my messages.
Please note that, as the messages are in the 'Deleted' folder rather than the 'Junk' folder, there is no option to mark them as 'Not junk'.
Therefore, is there a way to either:
1. Find out why a message was moved to the 'Deleted' folder, from the message itself? That is, is there a log that records message deletions with the reason for deletion?
2. Search the contents of 'Message filters' for words or phrases?
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I think you'll be seeing why using filters to handle spam is a bad idea. You're forever playing catch-up and you can amass hundreds of filters very quickly.
You could run a search tool over the data files which store the filters. Each account will have its own msgFilterRules.dat file, which are in text format and can be searched. I think the Notepad++ editor is one of the easiest ways to search multiple files and see the outcome, whilst limiting the search to just the kind of file you're interested in.
This won't necessarily find the filters for you, but it will let you see their names and so help you find them in the Message Filters dialogue. It will also tell you which folder a filter was found in, so helping you discover which account it is in.
Zenos, thank you for your reply. Apologies about my delay; I had some more serious PC problems to sort over the past week.
Your suggestion to search my msgFilterRules.dat file as a text file worked in the sense that I was able to do so. Unfortunately it did not provide an answer as to why some of my emails were getting deleted automatically. There must be a very subtle cause, word or phrase that I missed.
I agree with you that using filters is not a great way to handle spam. However, our spam filter only allows me to set a strength level and whether detected spam is marked or deleted, without being able to adjust any other settings. That seems a bit coarse, as the occasional 'good' email is marked as spam by this filter. At least the filters allow me to delete definite spam from repeat offenders automatically, without having to go through my junk folder first and manually deleting it. Of course, I am open to any (links to) better solutions.