The University of Sheffield
Corporate Information and Computing Services

Message filters

Message filters are tools that enable Thunderbird to process and organise messages before you've even read them.

You can automatically delete junk/spam and put messages from friends and mailing lists into separate folders, as well as doing other tasks.

How to create a Message Filter

  1. From the Tools menu, select Message Filters.
    A dialogue box opens that contains a list of all filters that have been previously created.

List of Message Filters

  1. From the Filters for: drop menu, ensure that the filters are operating on your University Account (rather than your Local Folders).
  2. Click the New button to create a new filter.
    This displays a dialogue box where you create filters.

Making a filter

  1. Give the filter a meaningful name.
  2. In the For incoming messages that: area specify the criteria you wish to use to filter incoming messages.
  3. In the Perform these actions: area specify the action to take when a matching message arrives.
    Choose actions from the list and if necessary, specify the target folder.
  4. Click OK to return to the filter list, then either add a new filter or close the filter list window.