Enable Mail Filtering in Windows Live Mail Desktop
Enigma, a regular visitor of my blog, asked if there was a way to stop pdf spam from appearing in his Windows Live Mail Desktop software. I decided to investigate the matter and take a look at it. Windows Live Mail Desktop is basically a mail client like Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook integrating with several other Microsoft applications such as Windows Live Messenger or Live Spaces.
There is no obvious way to add mail filters to Windows Live Mail Desktop. The only menu that I was able to find at the beginning was E-mail safety options which manages whitelists, blacklists and digital signatures. No sign of mail filters though.
However, after enabling All Menus from the toolbar I was able to spot the Message Rules menu in the Tools menu which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. Microsoft in their drive to make their new application look clean as hell hid many features and settings including the message rules.
If you want to filter .pdf files automatically you will have to create a new mail message rule. Click on 'Where the message body contains specific words' and on 'Where the message has an attachment'. Now click on 'contains specific words' in the 'To edit this description..' form and add '.pdf' there.
Now select an action for this message rule. I would suggest you move it to a newly created folder to take a look at the filtered messages once a week or so to make sure that only pdf spam was moved to it. If that is correct you can delete the contents as usual.
Select a name like 'pdf spam' and save the message filter. This method works for other file types as well of course, just add (or replace) another file extension and save the new rule so that Live Mail obeys it from that moment on.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!