Global Email Filters

Overview

This interface allows you to configure how your server filters all of the email that your domains’ email accounts receive.

Note:
  • We strongly recommend that you use multiple, simple filters instead of a single large filter. Exim, the server’s mail transfer agent, handles many small rules more efficiently than a single large rule.
  • Email filters will not process any email messages that are discarded before delivery. The system may discard some email messages before delivery if you select the Discard the email while your server processes it by SMTP time with an error message setting in cPanel’s Default Address interface (cPanel » Home » Email » Default Address). interface.
  • Generally, the recipient does not receive the BCC field in an email’s header. For this reason, you cannot use the BCC field in a filter.

For more information about cPanel’s email filter rules and actions, read our How to Configure Mail Filters documentation.

Create a filter

To create a new filter, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Create a New Filter.
  2. Enter the filter’s name in the Filter Name text box.
  3. Configure your filter’s rules and actions. For more information about configuring your filter, read our How to Configure Mail Filters documentation.
  4. Click Create.

Create a wildcard redirect

A wildcard redirect will redirect all emails whose addresses match a regular expression (regex) pattern.

Important:

Forwarders deliver copies of a forwarded email to both the original and the destination address, while redirects only deliver emails to the destination address. For example, redirecting an email from sample-email@example.com to correct-sample-email@example.com will result in it only being available in the correct-sample-email@example.com inbox.

To create a wildcard redirect, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Create a New Filter.
  2. Enter the wildcard filter’s name in the Filter Name text box.
  3. Select From from the Rules menu to apply your new filter to the sending email address.
  4. Select matches regex from the Operators menu to compare the sending email address to your regex pattern.
  5. Enter your regex pattern in the Criteria text box.
    Note:

    • The regex pattern must have a .+ notation where wildcard characters are expected. For example, to forward test_user1@example.com and test_user2@example.com to the same address, set the regex pattern to test_user.+@example\.com.

    • A sending email address must have wildcard characters in the expected place to be caught by the wildcard filter. For example, a wildcard filter tracking the regex pattern test_user.+@example.com will catch test_user45@example.com and test_user_SHOSHANA@example.com, but will not catch test_user@example.com.

Current Filters

The Current Filters section lists all of the account-level filters for your cPanel account.

Edit a filter

To edit an existing filter, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Edit next to the appropriate filter name.
  2. Make the desired changes to the filter.
  3. Click Create.

Delete a filter

To delete a filter, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Delete next to the appropriate filter name.
  2. Click Delete Filter.

Test a filter

Important:

To learn more about your filter’s rules and actions, read our How to Configure Mail Filters documentation.

To test your filter, perform the following steps:

  1. Enter a test email message in the Filter Test text box. Include the characters, words, and conditions that you configured for your filter.
  2. Click Test Filter. The Filter Trace Results interface will appear.

The Filter Trace Results interface

The Filter Trace Results interface will display results similar to the following:

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Sub-condition is false: not first_delivery
Condition is false: not first_delivery and error_message
Condition is false: $message_body contains Keyword
Return-path copied from sender
Sender      = username@hostname.example.com
Recipient   = username@hostname.example.com
Testing Exim filter file "/home/example/etc/example.com/filtertest/filter"

Headers charset "UTF-8"
Filtering did not set up a significant delivery.
Normal delivery will occur.

The results contain the following information:

  • Each condition in the filter, and whether it returned a true or false result.
  • The Sender and the Recipient of the test message.
  • The filter file’s name.
  • The character set of the message.
  • Whether the filter triggers a change in delivery or if it will deliver normally.
    • Filtering did not set up a significant delivery. Normal delivery will occur. — The system will deliver the message to the mailbox.
    • Filtering set up at least one significant delivery or other action. No other deliveries will occur. — The system will deliver the message to another mailbox or folder, or it will not deliver the message.
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