• INTRO
• ABOUT THUNDERBIRD
• ABOUT THIS MANUAL
• HOW EMAIL WORKS
• EMAIL ETIQUETTE
• INSTALLATION
• WINDOWS
• OSX
• OTHER LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS
• WHAT IS FLOSS?
• REMOVING THUNDERBIRD
• SWITCHING TO THUNDERBIRD
• MIGRATING!
• UBUNTU
• MIGRATING FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS
• ACCOUNT SET UP
• BASIC USAGE
• INTERFACE
• GETTING MAIL
• COMPOSING MESSAGES
• READING AND ORGANIZING MAIL
• SEARCHING AND FILTERING MESSAGES
• ARCHIVING MESSAGES
• ADDRESS BOOK
• ADDRESS BOOK BASICS
• SECURITY
• SECURITY OPTIONS
• BEYOND THE BASICS
• KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
• TAGGING AND MARKING
• RSS
• FILTERS
• USEFUL TIPS AND TRICKS
• ACTIVITY MANAGER
• UNIFIED FOLDERS
• ADD ONS
• OVERVIEW
• USING THE ADD-ON MANAGER
• ENABLING AND DISABLING ADD-ONS
• THUNDERBROWSE
• LIGHTNING
• THUNDERBIRD CONVERSATIONS
• ATTACHMENT REMINDER
• THREADVIS
• SIGNATURE SWITCH
• APPENDIX
• GETTING SUPPORT
• TROUBLESHOOTING
• CREDITS

Filters

Filters help you place your incoming mail in different folders so that you're not overwhelmed by a large number of messages in your inbox. Filters can also perform a number of other actions like marking messages as read, or forwarding messages to another email address. 

One way to use a filter is to move messages to a certain folder. For example, if you receive many emails from Facebook and you do not want to see them pile up in your inbox, set up a filter that moves your messages from the inbox to a folder called "Facebook".

Setting up a filter

1. Click the Local Folders section in the Folders pane.
2. Go to the File menu, point to New, and click Folder.
3. Name the folder whatever you like. For the above example, name the folder "Facebook".
   
4. Click Create Folder. Your new folder will show up in the Folders pane.

   

5. Go to the Tools menu and click Message Filters. 
6. Click New to open the dialog box for setting up a filter.
7. Name the filter whatever you like. Following the example, call it "Facebook filter". Then, select an option from the drop-down menu - for example, Subject. This is where you can choose what type of filter you want. In this example, filter any messages that contain the word "Facebook" in the subject. You can click the plus symbol to add more filters.

   

8. On the same dialog box, click the drop down menu next to Move Message To and select a folder. This is where you would go to Local Folders and find the folder you created. Following the example, select the "Facebook" folder.

   

9. Click the OK button and your filter is ready to go!
10. To test your filter, click the Run Now button in the "Message Filters" dialog box. Make sure Inbox is selected to the left of this button.

    

11. Check the new folder you created to confirm that messages from your inbox were moved based on your filter. Following the example, check that messages with "Facebook" in the subject have been moved to the "Facebook filter" folder.