Domain Content Filtering

This settings page is only available to domain administrators and system administrators with the proper permissions.

Content Filtering at the domain level is a great way to perform actions that meet specific criteria for all users on the domain. For example, you can use content filters to delete messages with certain attachments (e.g., attachments with a .exe extension), forward messages from a specific email address to another account, or even alter the subject of specific types of email. Content filters are most commonly used to organize email by moving messages to specific folders. However, content filtering is extremely flexible and allows you to filter messages for users the way you want to.

Domain content filters take precedence over any user-generated content filters. That means domain content filters run before the evaluation of account-specific content filters.

NOTE: Some content filtering actions, such as a Forward action, do not work in conjunction with Plus Addressing as content filters are run BEFORE any plus addressing commands. Using both could lead to duplicate messages or other unwanted/unnecessary behavior.

How Domain Content Filters Are Evaluated

Content filtering happens in a strict, layered order every time a message is processed: first the system-wide spam filtering action (if any) is applied, then domain-level content filters are evaluated, and finally — only if the message is still eligible for delivery — user-level content filters are evaluated. Understanding this order, along with a few other evaluation details, will help you predict exactly how a message will be handled:

Only the first matching filter at each level fires. If a domain has multiple content filters and a message matches the conditions of more than one, only the first matching filter (in the order the filters are listed on this page) actually applies its actions — the rest are skipped for that message. This makes filter order important: if you have both a broad, catch-all filter and a narrow, specific-case filter, list the narrow filter first so it gets a chance to run before the broad one intercepts the message.
A domain-level Delete or Bounce action stops all further processing. If a domain content filter's action deletes or bounces a message, the message never reaches user-level content filters at all — not even the account owner's own filters get a chance to run. This is an important consideration if a domain administrator sets up a broad Delete filter and users on the domain are relying on their own personal filters to protect certain messages; the domain-level filter will win every time.
Actions apply in a fixed priority order, not the order they were added in the dialog. When a single matching filter has multiple actions configured, SmarterMail applies them in this order regardless of how they were entered: Delete/Bounce first (which immediately halts further processing), then Add Header, Add Text to Subject, and Set Priority, then Forward, then Mark as Read and Flag Message, and finally Move Message last. For example, if a filter both prepends text to the subject and moves the message to a folder, the subject will already show the modified text by the time the message lands in that folder, because Add Text to Subject always runs before Move Message.

Creating Domain Content Filters

When adding a content filter, the following cards will be available, each with options pertaining to the conditions you want to use for the rules, and the actions that are taken based on the conditions you set:

General

Name - The friendly name chosen to describe the rule.
Match Type - Because multiple conditions can be configured per content filter, SmarterMail provides the option to require ALL conditions to be met or only ONE of the conditions to be met in order for the rule's action to be triggered. Select the appropriate option from this list.
Enable wildcards in search strings (* and ?) - Enable this setting to allow wildcard functionality. Wildcards can be used to replace a specific word, phrase or character, where a question mark (?) represents a single character and an asterisk (*) represents any text. For example, if you wanted to block sales01@domain.com, sales02@domain.com and sales03@domain.com, you could enter sales??@domain.com. If you wanted to block all sales addresses, you could enter sales* instead. Wildcard matching is case-insensitive, so Sales* and sales* behave identically.

Conditions

Click on New Condition to specify the criteria that triggers the rule's action(s). For each condition selected, you will be able to add specifications and enter any necessary details, as required. For example, if you choose to filter on 'From Address', you can enter one or multiple email addresses. If you choose to filter on 'Contains specific words or phrases', you can enter the specific text and choose to look for that text in an email's subject, message body, header, etc.

On many conditions, you also have the ability to reverse the logic of the criteria item by changing the Comparison selection. For example, imagine you only want to accept email from specific domains. You would choose the 'From specific domains' condition and set the Comparison field to 'Does Not Match". Any messages sent from domains that do not match what you've entered in the text box can be deleted.

NOTE:Note: If you select a condition that requires a value to be entered, and the field is left blank, SmarterMail will ignore this rule.

The following conditions are available, separated by Condition Type:

From Address

From specific addresses
From specific domains
From trusted senders

Contains Specific Words or Phrases

Subject
Body
Subject or Body
From Address
To Address
Email header
Anywhere in message

To Address

To specific addresses
To specific domains
Only to me
My address in to field
My address not in to field
My address in to or cc field

Attachments

Has any attachment
Specific filenames
Specific extensions
Over specific size

Other

Flagged as high priority
Flagged as normal priority
Flagged as low priority
Message automated (no return address)
Sender authenticated
Message over size
Message under size
Received in date range
Sent through a specific server (by IP address)
Spam probability

NOTE: The Sender authenticated condition can only be evaluated while a message is actively being received over SMTP (i.e., while SmarterMail still knows whether the connecting client authenticated). It has no effect on filters that are run against messages that have already been delivered and stored.

Actions

Click on New Action to specify what should occur when an email triggers the content filter condition(s).

NOTE: If you select an action that requires a value to be entered, and the field is left blank, SmarterMail will ignore this rule.

The following actions are available:

Delete message - Deletes the message so that it will never arrive at your Inbox.

NOTE: Messages deleted through content filtering cannot be recovered.

Bounce message - Sends a message back to the sender of the email saying that the message was bounced. Note that the message is still delivered to you unless you choose to delete it as well.

NOTE: If the system administrator has disabled bouncing, this option will function the same as the delete action.

Move message - Delivers the incoming message to the folder you choose from the dropdown list.

NOTE: If you later delete that folder and leave the content filter active, the filter will automatically recreate the folder when the action is triggered.

Add Header - Adds an email header within the incoming message, which can be useful when performing additional filtering through Outlook or other email clients. Headers should be formatted like "X-someheadername: value"
Add text to subject - Appends a prefix to the subject line of the email. This is useful for categorizing emails as the subject line will be altered to include the text you specify in the text box.
Forward message - Forwards a copy of the message to another email address and leaves a copy of the message in your mailbox. Messages can instead be deleted from when forwarded by enabling the option. In addition, forwarded messages generally show the user who receives a forwarded message as the "TO" address. If the original recipients of the message need to be retained (i.e., the message in its original format needs to be forwarded), the "Keep original sender and recipients when forwarded" option can be enabled. When enabled, the TO and FROM addresses will look exactly the same as they did when the person forwarding the message received it.
Mark as read - Automatically marks the messages as read, which means it will not show up in your inbox, or any other folder, as unread.
Set Priority - Automatically elevates the priority of a message. For example, if you create a content filter that flags a message from a VIP, you may want to set the priority of the message to High as well to denote its importance.
Flag message - Automatically flags the message for follow-up. This makes it easy to find messages that have been acted upon by your content filter.