Introduction

Filtering emails with cPanel has never been that easy! No matter if you would like to stop receiving messages from someone or forward messages with a certain subject, cPanel has got you covered. Thanks to the "Email Filters" functionality, you will be able to easily create and manage email filters on an email account basis without affecting the rest of your email accounts created for the remaining domains on your cPanel web hosting account.

In the next lines of this tutorial, we will provide you with detailed information on how to fully manage the "Email Filters" functionality in cPanel. 

Let us begin!

Accessing the Email Filters in cPanel

In order to access any of the features in cPanel, you will first have to log inside your cPanel web hosting account. If you are not sure how to do that, please follow our tutorial about How to access the cPanel service. 

When you log in, please look for the "Email Filters" feature either by using the Search tool provided at the top of the page or look for the "Email" features group, in which the "Email Filters" feature is located. 

Clicking on the feature will redirect you to a brand new page called respectively "Email Filters". From this point on in this tutorial, we will be referring to this page as the default page for the "Email Filters" feature. 

Create a new Email Filter

As we have mentioned, Email Filters are used for creating rules that will be cross-referenced with any incoming message associated with an existing email account with the sole purpose of performing the rule's goal and filtering out the pesky text, subject or recipient you do not want to see. Therefore, to add a new email filter, you will first have to choose the email account to which the filter will be added.

On the default "Email Filters" page you will see a table containing all of the email accounts you have already created on your cPanel account. From that table, please select the email account you would like to manage the Email Filters for by simply clicking on the "Manage Filters" link displayed next to every email account in the table. 

Performing this action will redirect you to a brand new page where you will be able to further manage the email filters for the chosen email account. 

To create a new Email Filter, please click on the "Create a New Filter" button displayed at the top part of the page. 

This action will redirect you to another page, where you will have several options. From them, you can choose which ones to include in your email filter when you create it.

Let's review these one by one.

• Filter Name - Please use this text field to set the name of the filter that will be used to identify it in the list of available filters for the specific email account. Please configure it to be as detailed and explanatory as possible and to make sense of the goal you are looking to achieve. 
• Rules - Please use this drop-down menu and the content box to define the rules that the email service will follow when using this filter. First of all, let us outline that you have as many filters as you would like to. If you would like to add a new filter or remove an existing one, please use the "+" and "-" buttons in the right part of the filter's configuration. Furthermore, to actually configure the filter, you will have to choose from two fields and manually input the third one. We believe that the configuration of these fields should be done based on your needs, so we will avoid explaining their meaning since they are pretty much self-explanatory. 
• Actions - Please use this drop-down menu to choose what action the email service should take with messages matching the filters you have configured in the previous configuration option. The available actions are as follows:
  • Discard Message - Please select this option to cause any message matching any of the configured filters to be discarded. 
  • Redirect to Email - Please select this option to instruct the email service to redirect any messages matching the configured filters to a mail account that you specify. 
  • Fail with Message - Please choose this option to instruct the mail server to deny messages matching any of the configured filters and send a predefined message to the sender of the messages. 
  • Stop Processing Rules - Please select this option to prevent any of the rules configured above to be avoided. 
  • Deliver to Folder - Please select this option to instruct the mail server to send any messages matching the configured rules to a predefined folder.
  • Pipe to a Program - Please select this option to allow any messages matching the created filters to be sent to a script on your Web Hosting Account. 

When you are ready to configure the available options, please click on the "Create" button displayed at the bottom of the page so your Email filter can be successfully created. 

Once the filter is created cPanel will display a message of success or any error in case such is detected. If the creation of the filter fails, you will see an error message instead.

If everything goes well and you see a success message, it means that your email filter was created. 

Manage already existing Email Filters

To manage an existing email filter you will need to once again access the filters for the chosen email account. A list of the configured filters will appear. Please note that the email filters will be ordered by the turn of their execution by the email server.

The highest the location of the mail filter is with the bigger priority it will be processed. 

To edit a mail filter, please click on the "Edit" button displayed in the right part of the filter's block. 

This action will redirect you to a familiar screen containing all the configurations discussed in the previous section of this tutorial. The configurations will be already set, so please feel free to edit them to achieve your goal. Once ready, please click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the page to save the filter. 

To delete an existing filter, please click on the "Delete" link, which should be displayed right next to the "Edit" link. 

cPanel will then ask you to confirm the deletion of the account by redirecting you to a new page. To do so, please click on the "Delete Filter" button. The filter will then be deleted, and you will be able to return to the Email Filters page for the selected email account. 

Congratulations! You now know how to fully manage the email filters for separate email accounts. If you face any difficulties doing so, please do not hesitate to contact our Technical Support Crew. They can further assist you with everything you will need.