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how can I exclude a keyword in the email filter ex: dont show all emails that dont say the word "couch"

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  • Last reply by Zenos

caterpillar.racer
caterpillar.racer
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I'm not asking how to search for a certain keyword in a list of all my emails. I know you can type a word such as "billing" or something, and a list of all emails with that keyword will come up.

What I'm trying to find out is how do I exclude a certain keyword so a list of emails will show up that dont have that keyword.

for example, I type the word "couch" in and all the emails that DON'T have that keyword "couch" in it will show up. Basically so I can quickly delete them all and have all the emails with the keyword "couch" in them still in my inbox.

excuse my sloppy writing, but this feature would be great if there isn't a way to do it already. If there is, could you please tell me how to do this?

I'm not asking how to search for a certain keyword in a list of all my emails. I know you can type a word such as "billing" or something, and a list of all emails with that keyword will come up. What I'm trying to find out is how do I exclude a certain keyword so a list of emails will show up that dont have that keyword. for example, I type the word "couch" in and all the emails that DON'T have that keyword "couch" in it will show up. Basically so I can quickly delete them all and have all the emails with the keyword "couch" in them still in my inbox. excuse my sloppy writing, but this feature would be great if there isn't a way to do it already. If there is, could you please tell me how to do this?

All Replies (1)

Zenos
Zenos
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So you want to hide all the messages that do have the word "couch"? Is that in the subject, or in the message body?

Saying "filter" is a bit vague. You can do this in the regular Message Filters as they have rules for "contains" and "does not contain", but they are intended to do something with the selected messages, such as move or tag or delete them, whereas I take it from your request that you are probably looking at the QuickFilter bar which simply hides messages that don't fit the selected filter.

You could try the Mail Views tool, which you can add to your toolbar via the usual toolbar customization procedure. This has a set-up dialogue which is similar to that used with Message Filters and should, IIRC, offer you the "does not contain" option.

However, Mail Views is fine for something you do regularly but not so good for ad-hoc actions, since there is significant effort needed to set it up.

I'd be inclined to do it another way. Use a Message Filter to move all the "couch" messages to another folder then review and delete all that is left over. But then I only have new unread messages in my Inbox, since I file everything that needs to be kept into its own folder(s).