Some Rules Disappeared
 

Lately, I've noticed that some of my file into folders rules have disappeared.

For instance, until today, digests from freecycle were filed into my freecycle folder.
Today, they went into my inbox and no rule containing part of the email address
I use with the digests or part of the from address could be found. Yet it must have
been there before or over 200 digests would not have made their way to my
freecycle folder and I remember making a rule, although I did it so long ago
that i don't recall if I used part of the to or the from address.

Other rules I recall writing are also gone.

Is this happening to anyone else? And, what's going on?

Thanks.

Ellen

I just noticed that substr has stopped working in search too.

I agree that it appears that the substr:() substring search feature is broken I just filed a support ticket on this issue.


Bill

Thanks, Bill.

I'll submit a support request about the disappearing rules if I don't get an answer here.

Ellen

I received a response to my support ticket:
There are multiple ways that a message can be filed in a folder (in addition to rules). I’m editing my post on another computer and will post it later today in this thread.

Bill

Methods other than rules to file messages into a folder
 

I have many rules in my main Fastmail account. They all seem to still be present, and I have not noticed any filing into folders problems, But this is just my experience so far, and it's possible some rules are missing and I might not notice this.

It's possible you never had filing rules directing messages into those folders. There are several different ways that incoming messages can be automatically filed into a folder (in addition to rules):

• When a new message arrives at your account, an initial target folder is assigned for that message. By default this target folder is Inbox, but several things can change the target folder:
  • If the message is addressed to your main (login) account address, the target folder is Inbox.
  • If the message is addressed to a plus+address or subdomain address, the target folder is specified by the address. So if your account was user@example.org, messages sent to either user+test@example.org or test@user.example.org are assigned the "test" target folder.
  • If the message is addressed to an alias at your account (at either a Fastmail or user domain), the target folder is set by the target you entered on the Settings>Aliases screen. So if you set the target for the jane@example.org alias to user+test@example.org, the target folder will be the "test" folder.
• After the target folder is set as described above, the sieve script is executed.
  • If the sieve script does not change the target folder, the target folder as earlier described is used for delivery.
  • If the sieve script changes the target folder, the last target executed before the sieve script terminates is used.
  • It's possible for a sieve command to file the message into more than one folder.
• The best way to investigate this is to look at the full headers of messages in a folder and examine the X-Resolved-To header. If you see a + character in that header, the target folder before the sieve script ran is shown between the + and @ characters.

Bill

Thanks, Bill. This is very helpful.

Ellen