update on cox webmail filtering
something has changed. I spent months creating filters that would whitelist (still works) known good email addresses, and reject bad email with reason "553: account doesn't exist". It used to work....
Forum Discussion
The current Webmail configuration doesn't provide users the ability to whitelist email addresses.
Filter Rules only apply to Inbox. Email flagged as spam by an online security company will go to Spam. Your only option to prevent receiving them is to "unsubscribe" from each individual sender.
The "Discard" Webmail Filter Rule action will block email going to Inbox. Review your Filter Rules to verify you don't have a conflicting, higher priority rule. For example, a higher priority rule with a "File into" Inbox action before a "Discard" rule would result in a copy of incoming email going to Inbox and the original email being discarded. The two rules would offset each other.
Marking email in Spam folder as "Not spam" on the current version of Webmail only moves that individual email to Inbox and theoretically adds your vote to a filtering system used to identify email addresses to be flagged as spam by the online security companies. Future email from the sender will continue to go to Spam folder. This will change when the conversion to Yahoo Mail is completed in May, 2024. According to a help.yahoo.com website, marking email as "Not spam" will allow future email received from that sender to go to Inbox.
I have draconian filter rules that require me to make a whitelist or all my emails would be deleted.
I thoroughly tested my rules and discard does nothing. I'm not going in to all the details how I tested, but it does nothing.
I have draconian filter rules that require me to make a whitelist or all my emails would be deleted.
What does that mean? Why would all your emails be deleted? Are you referring to Webmail's Filter Rules and Whitelist or those of an email client?
When the current version of Webmail was first implemented, Webmail Help had a warning about using Webmail's "whitelist" because it disregards security protocols. It included a disclaimer that it's only available if the Webmail configuration permits it. I can't find the Help text now, so that Help reference to "whitelist" must have been removed. Webmail doesn't have a "Safe Senders" list. So, how did you make a Webmail whitelist when this configuration doesn't permit it or provide functionality to create one? Are you just using "whitelist" to reference Filter Rules that send selected sender's email to Inbox?
If you're using Filter Rules with "File into" Inbox followed by "Discard", that's why it appears "Discard" does nothing. As I said in my previous post, those two actions offset each other. You get the same result you would get by having neither rule. Unless it's used with a subsequent rule, a "File into" Inbox rule is never necessary or wanted because it creates a second copy in Inbox. Filter Rules don't apply to email going to Spam and all other email will go to Inbox anyway. Delete or change conditions for your "Discard" rules and you won't need the "File into" Inbox rules. Your email will be much easier to manage. You only need "Discard" rules to block unwanted email that's going to Inbox (not Spam).
Filter Rules with "Discard" action work as intended. I retain a copy of incoming email in Webmail and forward a copy to my primary email account, so I only have to open my primary to check email for both. I created a test Webmail Filter Rule to 'Discard" email from my primary account and made it a lower priority than the "Forward" rule. I then sent an email to Webmail from primary. It was forwarded back to my primary account, but a copy was nowhere to be found in Webmail because the "Discard" Filter Rule deleted it.
