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user_3e4d44
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6 Messages

Saturday, April 30th, 2022 6:51 AM

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creating email filters

I would like to know if it is possible to create email filters using wildcards.  I know that you can key in on if specific words are on the subject line, but I would like to use wildcards to filter items coming from domains.  As an example:

                    senders address:    [Edited: "Personal Information"]re.com .  The information prior to the "@" may change into anything, as well as anything after the "@", with "store.com" always being the same.  I would like to be able to use the wildcard '*' to have a filter look like:   *@*store.com  .   This would indicate to do whatever I specify to an email coming in from ANY combination of characters before the '@", and ANY combination of characters after the '@", in front of the 'store.com'.   This would block ANYTHING that comes from 'store.com'.

Spam/junk mail folks are creative in making simple word changes prior to the '@" and after it, to make it look like a different sender.  I would like to block that action, with a one line filter catching any character changes, by the use of the wildcard character ;*;.  The '*' would indicated 'any character'.

I have tried using wildcards with Xfinity email filtering, but it does not appear to recognize the usage.  Is wildcard editing of email filters possible with Xfinity?

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3 years ago

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XfinityMichaelC

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4.1K Messages

3 years ago

Greetings, @user_3e4d44! Thanks for reaching out to us on the Forums! I hope you are having an amazing day! I certainly understand wanting to find a mass solution when it comes to filtering out mail you don't want quickly. Unfortunately, the Xfinity email filters do not support wildcards at this time. Doing a little further research it doesn't look like outlook support it either. However, we do provide a safe list that you can add addresses that are safe and block out anything else that way. For more information have a look at https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/xfinity-connect-safe-list and let us know if you have anything further questions.

(edited)

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user_9ec04e

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2 Messages

@XfinityMichaelC​ 

Thank you.  I will hope that the wildcard capability might be added in the future as it makes things soo much easier to control spammers.  I can see the 'safe list' as being more attractive for someone that does not interract with a lot of email addresses, but you still would have to be careful.  When dealing with businesses/customer service departments, emails can change.  You would not have their new address on the 'safe list', and could have several important items bounce, causing issues, before you finally figured out what was happening.  The same could happen with friends, who change email addresses.

3 years ago

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BruceW

Gold Problem Solver

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26.2K Messages

3 years ago

... if it is possible to create email filters using wildcards ...

Use "Matches". For example, a condition like

    Subject    Matches    the * brown fox

matches an email subject "the quick brown fox", but does not match the subject "brown fox". "Matches" also allows the use of "?" to match any single character.

https://documentation.open-xchange.com/components/middleware/http/7.10.6/index.html#possible-comparisons may be of help.

Please be aware that there are 2 kinds of responses in this Forum: Replies and Comments. When you Comment on a post by scrolling down to "Comment on this post here...", I am notified of your response. But if you select Reply, I am NOT notified and may not be aware of your response.

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justaguy3

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5 Messages

@BruceW​ 

would you mind giving an example, perhaps by posting a screenshot of a rule? I’ve been suffering a spam attack where my email has been signed up for ~500 mailing lists so far and I’d like to restrict incoming emails to certain domains using wildcards (e.g., *.uconn.edu, etc).  It seems you are indicating this can be done with ‘matches’, right? Tyvm for any help you can give an old guy. 

3 years ago

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justaguy3

New Poster

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5 Messages

@justaguy3​ 

sorry.  Also, do i need to create a rule for each domain I want to keep or is there a way to feed a rule a SET of domains, e.g., {*.uconn.edu; *.gmail.com; *.amazon.com}?

3 years ago

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user_9ec04e

Visitor

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2 Messages

3 years ago

I have gone through one of my email filters, for one of my email addresses and changed from 'contains', to 'matches.  I did not that it made the comment that using 'matches' allows for DOS type wild carding, which is what I wanted!!

Thanks a bunch.  I will convert all over from using 'contains' to 'matches', and then all of my wildcards will work.

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justaguy3

New Poster

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5 Messages

@user_9ec04e​ 

same as above. If you are willing to post a detailed description as an example or screenshot of a few rules using wildcard matches, that would be insanely helpful.  

3 years ago

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user_3e4d44

Visitor

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6 Messages

*@*classes.org

*@*print.com

*@robinhood.com

[Edited: "Personal Information"]     I broke down to rule:  *@*.info

The spammers can have anything in front of the '@', or after.  Since the wildcard '*' covers any charcters, the rule covers anything that they could put in, with the last part being ".info".  This will cover anything having characters before the '@', and after it, prior to ".info", such as test.test.mine@you.bought.this.here.info.

(edited)

3 years ago

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BruceW

Gold Problem Solver

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26.2K Messages

3 years ago

@justaguy3 wrote: "... to restrict incoming emails to certain domains using wildcards (e.g., *.uconn.edu, etc). ..."

I haven't tried it, but I think this would work:

You'd need to add a Condition line for each domain you don't want to ignore.

(edited)

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justaguy3

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5 Messages

@BruceW​ 

wow. I feel foolish that I didn’t realize one could include multiple conditions in a single rule to get Boolean functionality. As for the domains, I don’t need a period or @? That is, the syntax should be *domainname, not *@domainname? And ty again. I am an old guy with nasty arthritis and even group selecting thousands of emails per day to send to spam is really hurting my hands. 

3 years ago

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user_3e4d44

Visitor

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6 Messages

@BruceW​ 

Basically, *domainname, and *@domainname do not do the same thing.  If the domain name is dog.com, and you use *dog.com, the '*' will use any character(s) prior to dog.com, and make a line out of it.  If your characters were 'cat', you would end up with catdog.com, which is NOT the domain you were keying in on.  If you had used *@dog.com, the '*' would put in cat@dog.com.  Using this one would many any line with characters prior to the '@', doing to dog.com, would not go through, effectively stopping ALL email for dog .com.  This is providing you had used the 'matches' option.

(edited)

3 years ago

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user_3e4d44

Visitor

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6 Messages

@justaguy3​ 

This is an example of what the wildcard characters '*', and '?' will do.  Wildcards have been widely used in computer systems programming languages for a good while, and in some older document creation packages on those systems.

3 years ago

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BruceW

Gold Problem Solver

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26.2K Messages

3 years ago

... I don’t need a period or @? ...

Everything depends on the spam garbage you are trying to match. Do-it-yourself spam filtering is a bit of a bear . . .

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