Introduction to Thunderbird, part 7, message filters & mailing lists

OK, so we've come a long way in learning about Thunderbird.  In this article we'll learn about some features that ease the use of Thunderbird, automating some things for us and making it more productive to use.  First we'll start with message filters, so go to the menu option Tools -> Message filters as shown here:

and the following window will appear, click on the New button:

And the following new message filter window will appear:

Now, we have a mail filter on the server-side for the @nidelven-it.no email addresses, and all these email accounts get a separate email every day with a report over the filtered messages.  Neat, but the filter is so good that I think I've only gone in once to release an email that wasn't spam.  OK, so the email subject of all these reports are the same and somewhat unique, so I filter messages based on the subject.  Below that option, I select the option of moving messages to the Trash folder on the server.  Because I very rarely need to check a spam filtering report.

OK, so when that's done, I click on OK and get taken back to the main message filter window.  Because this is a new filter, I want to apply it to all the existing messages in the Inbox.. so I highlight the newly added filter and click on the "Run Now" button:

And voila, all the filtered messages have now been moved to the Trash folder, saving me some time when I navigate the Inbox. :)

OK, so let's move over to "mass mailing", or rather, "conveniently mailing more than one person at a time" - mailing lists..  OK, so click on the address book item in the main Thunderbird window:

The address book window will show up, and click on "New list" there:

The following window will appear:

Here I added some email addresses, as well a descriptive list name and description...  press on OK, and you get back to the address book window:

Select the newly added mailing list and click on the Write icon.. you will get a new message window, where you can enter subject, message body and anything else, and when you click on send, the message will be sent to all the recipients automatically.

Congratulations, you are now a more efficient mail user, having learned some new tricks to ease your day. :)

OK, that's it for this article, do come back for more, we will keep adding articles.