Folder colors in search folders, or: Automatically set tags based on folder name
Hi all!
I'm using a Search Folder with all my messages of the last 30 days across several actual folders of my one-and-only IMAP account.
I already manually tagged all relevant messages in each folder, like: - Personal: Blue - Work: Red - Other: Gray
==> one tag for all messages per folder.
How can I have new incoming messages automatically tagged, based on the folder?
I know that I can create message filters, but the folder/location is not available as criteria, since it looks like the available criteria (subject, size, date, age, from, to, cc, custom header) all seem to work on message headers only; hence the "Folder" or "Location" criteria is missing (see screenshot).
Please note that my IMAP filter already has Sieve rules in place which take care of the filing into the right folder. I want to avoid replicating them as Thunderbird rules, as there are a few more than outlined above.
While there are some promising extensions, they all seem deprecated/too old for Thunderbird 115.
The "Filter SubFolders" Add-on is ancient and apparently comes closest to my intent. Quote:
" It turns out that there's already functionality to do filtering on sub folders in Thunderbird, it's just not well documented. It can be enabled by setting the preference "mail.server.default.applyIncomingFilters" to true, or can be applied per folder by setting the "applyIncomingFilters" property to a folder. FilterQuilla (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/filtaquilla/) is reported to be able to set that property, although I haven't tested it. "
However, FilterQuilla also won't work with Thunderbird 115.
Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!
Chosen solution
Alright. Fixed it myself.
Luckily, Thunderbird supports IMAP flags. So if you're in the lucky position to manage your server-side Sieve filters yourself, this is the way to do it.
- In your Sieve rule, make sure to use the addflag command.
- Also make sure addflag comes before any fileinto action.
- Et voilà, automatically tagged/colored messages in virtual search folders.
No need for plugins which claim to help at first glance, but also can't fix a decades old design flaw in Thunderbird's search mechanism—preventing the search function to simply work on folders itself.
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Chosen Solution
Alright. Fixed it myself.
Luckily, Thunderbird supports IMAP flags. So if you're in the lucky position to manage your server-side Sieve filters yourself, this is the way to do it.
- In your Sieve rule, make sure to use the addflag command.
- Also make sure addflag comes before any fileinto action.
- Et voilà, automatically tagged/colored messages in virtual search folders.
No need for plugins which claim to help at first glance, but also can't fix a decades old design flaw in Thunderbird's search mechanism—preventing the search function to simply work on folders itself.
Setting the "mail.server.default.applyIncomingFilters" can be done with the config editor you do not need an addon. Just be aware that because everything is included, each filter needs logic to exclude non "new" mail in the folder or the result can be recursive nightmares.
Have you looked at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/autobucket/?src=cb-dl-users It sounds like it might be useful
Thanks for weighing in, Matt.
I'm not looking for client-side classification of messages, so the Autobucket addon doesn't really help me here.
I do all classification/tagging on the server via Sieve; this does have the upside of sparing my mobile devices from syncing any message moves Thunderbird would do if I did it client-side; the downside is what I outlined in my first post above.
However, I do have a search folder in Thunderbird which acts as my main "unified inbox view/new message monitor": it searches across several (not all) folders of my main account, and I want messages in certain folders show up in certain colors (tags come in handy here). The simple search folder is set up like this:
- Select the folders to search: 10 folders chosen
- ✅ Search Online
- Match all of the following:
- — Age in Days [is less than] 30
It now works quite well; I will enable the config entry you suggested and see how things go. Thanks again!