Filters & Vacation
Automatic rules that sort incoming mail on the server, plus out-of-office auto-replies.
Filters sort your incoming mail automatically: file newsletters into a folder, label anything from a key client, forward copies, or delete noise outright. The vacation responder answers senders for you while you are away.
Both run on the server, at the moment a message is delivered. Under the hood, Workspace compiles your rules into a Sieve script and installs it on the mail server (Dovecot). That has an important consequence:
Filters and vacation replies apply to every message no matter how you read your mail. A message filed into a folder by a rule is already in that folder when Outlook, Thunderbird, or your phone syncs over IMAP; nothing depends on the webmail being open.
Creating a filter
- Go to Settings, Filters and click to add a rule.
- Give the rule a name (for example "Newsletters").
- Add one or more conditions.
- Add one or more actions.
- Save. The rule takes effect immediately for new mail.
Filters apply to mail that arrives after the rule is saved; they do not re-process messages already in your mailbox.
Conditions
Each condition checks one header field against a value:
| Field | Operator | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| From address, To, Cc, or Subject | contains | The value appears anywhere in the field |
is | The field matches the value exactly | |
matches | Wildcard match: * for any text, ? for one character |
With multiple conditions you choose whether the rule fires when all of them match or when any of them does.
Actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| File into folder | Moves the message into a folder. If the folder does not exist yet, it is created automatically at delivery, so the rule never silently fails. |
| Apply label | Tags the message with one of your labels. |
| Mark as read | Delivers the message already read. |
| Star the message | Delivers the message starred. |
| Forward a copy | Sends a copy to another address and keeps the original in your mailbox. |
| Delete the message | Discards the message. It never reaches your inbox and is not in Trash, so use this carefully. |
Rule order and "stop"
Rules run top to bottom, and you can drag them into the order you want. Each rule has a stop processing option: when a rule with stop matches, no later rule runs on that message. This lets you put specific rules first (file mail from your accountant) and broad catch-alls last (label everything else from that domain).
The filter editor shows a live preview of the generated Sieve code, so you can see exactly what will be installed on the server.
Vacation auto-reply
The vacation responder sends an automatic reply to people who email you while you are away.
- Go to Settings, Vacation.
- Turn the responder on.
- Set a start date and an optional end date. Outside this window the responder stays silent, and it switches on and off automatically; you do not need to remember to disable it when you get back.
- Write the subject (default "Out of office") and the message body.
A few behaviours to know:
- Each sender is answered once per interval, not once per email. Someone who sends you ten messages while you are away gets a single auto-reply, then nothing until the interval resets.
- Mailing lists and automated senders are not answered. The responder follows the standard Sieve vacation rules: it only replies when your address is actually in the To or Cc line, and never to bulk or auto-generated mail. Your out-of-office cannot spam a mailing list or start a reply loop with another autoresponder.
- The auto-reply runs first, before your filters, so a filter that files or deletes a message cannot stop the sender from being answered.
Forwarding
Forwarding lives in the same server-side pipeline. Under Settings, Forwarding you can send all incoming mail on to one external address, with a keep a copy option that controls whether the original also stays in your mailbox. Forwarding runs before your filters, so it always applies.
Order of execution
For every incoming message, the server runs:
- Vacation - reply to the sender if the responder is active.
- Forwarding - redirect (and optionally keep) the message.
- Filters - your rules, top to bottom, until one with "stop" matches.
If none of your rules match, the message is delivered to the Inbox as normal.