Introduction

Email filtration is a process that allows you to instruct the incoming email service on how to prevent certain emails from reaching your inboxes by following specifically configured filtration rules. In other words, if you do not want to receive emails from somebody or if you simply want to discard messages with a specific subject, you can create an email filter to achieve your goal.

The cPanel web hosting control panel offers filtration on two levels. The first one is global for all email accounts you have created for all of your domains, or basically, every message sent to an email account associated with one of your domains. The second one is filtration on an Email Account level, which allows for email filtration only on selected email accounts.

In the following lines of this tutorial, we will review the "Global Email Filters" feature of cPanel. Let's begin!

Accessing the Global Email Filters feature in cPanel

First, you will need to access the cPanel service for your web hosting account to begin managing the email filters for all email accounts associated with your domains. To do so, please follow our How to access the cPanel service tutorial.

Now that you are logged in, you will need to locate the "Global Email Filters" feature of cPanel. You can achieve that by either using the search tool provided at the top of the page or by locating the "Email" features group, in which the "Global Email Filters" will be listed.

When you click on the feature's name, you will be redirected to the "Global Email Filters" default page. On that page, you will see a list of already created filters (assuming you have already done that).

Otherwise, you will be presented with the option to create new email filters.

Adding a new Global Email Filter

Let's start by adding a new Global Email Filter. To do that, please click on the "Create a New Filter" button at the top of the "Global Email Filters" page. 

This action will redirect you to a brand new page, where you will be presented with a few configuration options. Let's go over these options one by one so you get a better idea of what they do. 

• Filter Name - Please use this text field to type the name of the filter you will be using. Please bear in mind that the filter's name must be unique since it identifies the filter in the bulk of filters you might be adding. 
• Rules - Please use these drop-down menus and content box to instruct the email service on how exactly you want it to filter the received messages. There are many filtration options, so you can get very specific. You can have as many filters as you would like, and you can either add or remove these rules by using the provided "+" and "-" buttons corresponding to every filter.
• Actions - Please use this drop-down menu to configure the action that you want the email service to take for emails that match the rules you have created in the previous category. The available actions are as follows:
  • Discard Message - Please use this option to instruct the mail server to Discard all messages that are matching any of the rules you have previously configured. 
  • Redirect to Email - Please use this option to instruct the mail server to redirect any message that matches any of the rules you have previously configured. 
  • Fail with Message - Please use this option to configure any emails matching the rules you have specified to be discarded and the sender instructed with a failure message. 
  • Stop Processing Rules - Please use this option to enable the configured filter to skip all rules.
  • Deliver to Folder - Please use this option to instruct the mail server to deliver the messages only to a specific folder. 
  • Pipe to a Program - Please use this option to configure any messages matching the created filters to be sent to a script on your Web Hosting Account. 

Once you are ready with the configurations please click on the "Create" button located at the bottom of the page. 

When the filter is created, cPanel will display a message for success or any errors that you need to fix before you can add the filter. 

Managing existing Global Email Filters

The next section displayed on the "Global Email Filters" default page is the "Current Filters" section. In it, you will see a list of the email filters that have already been created. For each one of those, you can take advantage of the functionalities "Edit" or "Delete".

To "Edit" an existing Global Email Filter, please click on the "Edit" link right next to the feature name. 

This action will redirect you to the same configuration page that we discussed previously when adding a new filter. However, the settings for this filter will already be filled out, so you can edit them based on your needs. Once you are ready with the edits, please do not forget to click on the "Save" button displayed at the bottom of the page. 

To "Delete" an existing Global Email Filter, please click on the "Delete" link displayed right after the "Edit" link. 

cPanel will then prompt you with a new page where you must confirm the filter's deletion. Once you have done that, cPanel will redirect you back to the "Global Email Filters" default page.

Congratulations! You now know how to fully manage the "Global Email Filters" for your entire Web Hosting Account. Please bear in mind that these files will be applied to every email account you have configured for any of your domain names. If you are looking to filter the messages for a specific email account, you should check our other tutorial, "How to manage the Email Filters in cPanel," where we will explain how to set up and manage filters for a specific email account.