Not filtering messages that are already filtered

[Cecil Westerhof]

I am asked to write dome filters for someone. I first wrote some filters based on from address (which removed them from inbox). After this I wrote some filters based on to address. But the messages that where already filtered got the label for the to address also.

Is there a way to not label the messages that are already labelled with from address?

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Cecil Westerhof

[Andy]

On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 1:19 PM, Cecil Westerhof <cldwes...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a way to not label the messages that are already labelled with from address?

Every incoming message is processed by every filter.  Therefore, it's not true that a message processed by your first filter, would somehow be excluded from other filters.  Removing messages from the Inbox doesn't change anything about how the filters work.

Also, filters do not ​necessarily act in any particular order.  It's been said or implied that all filters act simultaneously.  Thus, the "second" filter can't depend on the results of the "first" filter.

If filters were sequential, then including "-label:firstlabel" in your second filter might exclude those messages that were already labeled by your first filter.  This might work, or it might not.  It never hurts to try.

If not, you might need to enumerate everything, for each filter.  In other words, your second filter should exclude all of the From: addresses that were identified by your first filter.

The other problem might be that messages in the same conversation, might seem to have two labels, when in fact the labels were attached to different messages in the conversation.  This gets more clear if you temporarily disable Conversation view.

Regards,

Andy

[Cecil Westerhof]

2017-06-29 5:56 GMT+02:00 Andy <AI.e...@gmail.com>:

On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 1:19 PM, Cecil Westerhof <cldwes...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a way to not label the messages that are already labelled with from address?

Every incoming message is processed by every filter.  Therefore, it's not true that a message processed by your first filter, would somehow be excluded from other filters.  Removing messages from the Inbox doesn't change anything about how the filters work.

Also, filters do not ​necessarily act in any particular order.  It's been said or implied that all filters act simultaneously.  Thus, the "second" filter can't depend on the results of the "first" filter.

If filters were sequential, then including "-label:firstlabel" in your second filter might exclude those messages that were already labeled by your first filter.  This might work, or it might not.  It never hurts to try.

If not, you might need to enumerate everything, for each filter.  In other words, your second filter should exclude all of the From: addresses that were identified by your first filter.

​It is not very handy, but probably the best to do. It does not change often (I hope), so it is doable.

 

The other problem might be that messages in the same conversation, might seem to have two labels, when in fact the labels were attached to different messages in the conversation.  This gets more clear if you temporarily disable Conversation view.

​If I still get this problem, I will try this also.

Thanks.

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Cecil Westerhof