Mail filter defaults to 'any' and not 'all'

[andybz]

We just had a problem here with one of our users creating a mail filter on some spam. It seems that Zimbra by default selects 'any' as the choice and not 'all'.

This user's action was to Discard the mail, but the mail filter included his email address in the To field, so all mail addressed to him ended up being discarded.

Can the Zimbra guys change the default from 'any' to become 'all' by default if you right click and email and select 'Add Filter'?

[Rich Graves]

See discussion and votes on:

Bug 24923 - Add a warning when "discard" is choosen in the mail filters
Bug 24924 - Filter created by right-click on a message is created with "any" rule

[andybz]

Thats what I'm looking for. Thanks!

[mmluba]

While mail filters are an end-user solution to spam that trickles through, it makes me wonder whether using them to really setup Zimbra filters to essentially "blacklist" specific messages is a wise solution. While spam will always manage to slip through, in a case like this I'd recommend users to setup to move messages to Junk, not Discard and watch to make sure things are running smoothly.

Unless an end-user is tech savvy at setting up mail filters with 100% confidence, I'd recommend not using "discard" for anything. In fact, I do remember being warned strongly by a Zimbra employee to not use the Discard function unless absolutely necessary.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by mmluba

While mail filters are an end-user solution to spam that trickles through, it makes me wonder whether using them to really setup Zimbra filters to essentially "blacklist" specific messages is a wise solution. While spam will always manage to slip through, in a case like this I'd recommend users to setup to move messages to Junk, not Discard and watch to make sure things are running smoothly

IMO, the mail filters should never be used to filter spam. There are adequate resources in Zimbra to filter spam, if those services aren't doing the job then the investigation should be directed at 'why' the spam is getting through. The user should not move the message to Junk using a filter as this has no effect on training the filters, they should always use th Junk button when the spam hit's their inbox.

Originally Posted by mmluba

Unless an end-user is tech savvy at setting up mail filters with 100% confidence, I'd recommend not using "discard" for anything. In fact, I do remember being warned strongly by a Zimbra employee to not use the Discard function unless absolutely necessary..

That's quite right, users should be careful using this feature - the above mentioned RFEs should go some way to alleviate this problem. If they really need a 'Discard' rule they should at least test their filer by moving the target mail into a temporary folder to make sure it isn't deleting valid email. I have seen several users that have used Discard and wondered why they stopped receiving mail from x days ago.

[blazeking]

I had exactly this problem - user "stopped receiving" e-mail. Turns out a discard rule was improperly setup. Is there a way to remove the "discard" option altogether?

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by blazeking

I had exactly this problem - user "stopped receiving" e-mail. Turns out a discard rule was improperly setup. Is there a way to remove the "discard" option altogether?

No, not at the moment. There's a couple of RFEs in bugzilla to give warnings about setting a discard option (I think it's fixed in 6.0 if you want to check).