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Automatic filter for gmail "All Mail" folder

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g123d.murphy
g123d.murphy
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Is there a setting or add on or way I can get Thunderbird Automatic filters to operate on my gmail "All Mail" folder instead of my gmail "Inbox folder" ?

Explaining why: When I am at my PC I use Thunderbird to view and sort my emails but when away I use gmail on my Ipad. So in gmail I have a variety of filters that move email to various gmail folders to make them easy to read. I like to retain a copy of all my mail on a Thunderbird Local drive and to save having to remember to do it I would like use a thunderbird automatic filter. However because I pre filter my emails; to get a copy of all of them; I have to do a manual message filter of the "All Mail" folder. As well as the obvious advantage of not having to do it manually it also often creates duplicates that then have to be removed.

Is there a setting or add on or way I can get Thunderbird Automatic filters to operate on my gmail "All Mail" folder instead of my gmail "Inbox folder" ? Explaining why: When I am at my PC I use Thunderbird to view and sort my emails but when away I use gmail on my Ipad. So in gmail I have a variety of filters that move email to various gmail folders to make them easy to read. I like to retain a copy of all my mail on a Thunderbird Local drive and to save having to remember to do it I would like use a thunderbird automatic filter. However because I pre filter my emails; to get a copy of all of them; I have to do a manual message filter of the "All Mail" folder. As well as the obvious advantage of not having to do it manually it also often creates duplicates that then have to be removed.

All Replies (3)

christ1
christ1
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I like to retain a copy of all my mail on a Thunderbird Local drive

Assuming your account is IMAP, I don't understand what's the point of doing this. You essentially are trying to work around the fundamental idea of IMAP. That's managing all mail on the server.

You can tell Thunderbird to download an offline copy of all messages on the server to your local disk. It's called 'synchronization'. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/imap-synchronization

Doing this then allows you to create backups of your entire email archive by simply backing up the Thunderbird profile folder. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

The result probably won't differ in any way from copying messages off of the server, regardless of whether this is done manually or via filters.

Athraithe ag christ1 ar

g123d.murphy
g123d.murphy Úinéir na ceiste
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The point or objective is: I am trying to reduce the volume of mails in my gmail account by storing the older ones in Thunderbird and still leave them searchable.

Thunderbird synchronization means you have to store the older ones in a local folder or they will be put back into gmail or lost. Because: If I just delete old emails in gmail; synchronization deletes them in thunderbird and they are lost in both locations. if I move or archive the old ones in thunderbird the synchronization is such that they are not deleted in the gmail account so do not reduce the volume. (and also remain in Thunderbird IMAP) So I copy (move is identical in this case because it just copies anyway) the old ones to a local folder then delete them from gmail and that also deletes them from the thunderbird IMAP folders. This involves 2 Manual operations and I was seeking to make one of them Automatic which I could if I could filter the IMAP all mail folder Automatically.

christ1
christ1
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I am trying to reduce the volume of mails in my gmail account by storing the older ones in Thunderbird and still leave them searchable.

Gmail offers 15 GB of storage. Are you saying your email archive is larger than that?