Poco Junk Mail FAQ - How do regular filters and junk mail filters interact?

Q: What is the logic with filters and junkfilters anyway? Is it: IF no filters match THEN execute junkmailfilters, if a filter matches don't execute?
 
A:
The logic is that if any filter executes one of the following commands:
  • Delete Message
  • Move Message to Mailbox
  • Stop Processing
then no subsequent actions in that filter will be executed nor will any subsequent filters. Note: This is somewhat of a simplification, I've had instances where subsequent actions such as "Dialog box with text" do fire but I suspect it is that commands that require thke message to still be in the processing path (ie: the "In" box). I have not tested this in any detail at all.

Note the bold line, if you are moving a message via a filter then the junk mail filtering is not in effect for those messages.

Here are a few examples of incoming filters that I have set:

  1. From is my wife's work email address OR from is my wife's personal email address then move message to her folder. (Note: Poco will not scan any message from her for junk mail which is totally appropriate).
  2. From address is one of my clients and the subject line is "scripting work" then move the message to that client's mailbox. (Junk mail filtering is not applied to these messages).
All my filters are variations on this theme. Some check the subject, some the sender and others even check the body. The actions I take always involve moving a message to a mailbox and thus Poco's junk mail filtering does not apply to these messages which is exactly what I want. The difference I see is that I am actively filtering on existing (positive) values rather than on negative ones. (Eg: I know anything sent by my wife is not spam so I don't want the junk mail filters to run on her messages).

One other potentially significant difference is that I don't rely solely on Poco's "out of the box" settings for junk mail filtering. I regularly go into the word lists, particularly the list for the "message body", and add phrases from messages that have not been caught. For example, I now have a condition that will increase the detection level of any message containing the phrase "patriotic gifts". The phrase I inserted into the message body filtering was:

"patriotic gifts",+8 This increases the XPS value of any message containing that phrase by a value of 8. With a medium setting any message with a value of something like 12 will be deemed junk.
Note: Poco 3 allows you to position the junk mail filters with respect to the other filters. You need to be aware that new filters you create are added to the end of the list and consquently are executed after the junk mail filters (this is different from Poco 2).