I have many incoming email filters or “rules” set up to automatically dump incoming email to specific IMAP or Local folders. But behavior is erratic. Some may work well for weeks then quit working at all or only work half the time then start working again. Others never have a problem.
Some were redundantly set in both ATT/Currently webmail (pacbell.net domain name) and eMClient. I thought I “fixed” it by disabling the eMC rules but then it started acting up gain.
What’s the preferred way when both webmail and a client is in use? I use eMC 99.9% of the time for reading/sending email and only use the ATT webmail for debugging or when it’s taking forever for eMC to download mail, which is often. New mail seems to show up in ATT webmail immediately.
If email is accessed on more than one device, or using more than one application, then the best method is to have the filters/Rules applied on the server. That way you will not have to duplicate the filters/Rules. The exception is when moving messages to Local Folders as obviously that cannot be done server-side, so you will need to setup that Rule in eM Client.
You also need to be aware that if a message has been moved to another folder using a server-side filter, eM Client will not automatically apply a Rule to that message.
This matches my recent experience till suddenly a given email source started landing alternately in eMC junk or eMC inbox, but some still went where it was supposed to go, throwing me a curve ball. This continues as I type. Then I got to thinking, does the server side filter care whether or not I access webmail, which I can go days/weeks without accessing? Is it activated only when I read from webmail?
I forgot a minor detail. I have 2 ATT/Yahoo accounts. The main/master one from decades ago with a messed up folder structure ATT/Yahoo won’t fix, and a new “sub” or secondary (forget their terminology) account I now use daily. The main (old) account does a “store and forward” to the newer sub account so I can receive email at either email addr. Obviously, filters in the old main account won’t work for me since I’m not using that IMAP folder structure within eMC. eMC only points to one account at a time (I have free version 7.xxxx).
I was not fully considering this as I kept tweaking filters to get it to work right. Any filters in the old acct that does the store and forward would snatch incoming email early and redirect it to the wrong place. I’ve just nuked those filters, and in eMC too, leaving only filters in the sub account. Let’s see if that fixes it. I do read email from not just eMC but an iPad and iPhone, thus the importance of any filtering being at the server level.
Fingers crossed, it should start working right now.
So this is the difference between server-side and client-side. Server-side filters will run regardless of whether you ever login to your account with a webmail or client application. Client-side filters, however, will only run when you open your email client in which you have created the filters/Rules.
OK, thanks. That’s logical. Re/ my post below from yesterday, it seems to be working now. I nuked all filters except for the ATT/Yahoo webmail sub-account, the one I use daily. After I gave it over night to settle down, the target IMAP folder is now getting 100% the email directed to it with none in Inbox or Junk as was happening erratically before. Happy dance time!