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Content filtering rule working when it shouldn't
Problem reported by Vickie K - 6/17/2026 at 9:35 PM
Submitted
V
I have an email account somewhere. It's a catch-all account, some emails are addressed to me, others are addressed to who known whom (but all on the same domain).

OK, then I have setup an email retrieval task in SmarterMail to collect those emails. Per previous advice from Andrew Barker, I have made sure I have "Enable content filtering (Inbox only)" turned on.

Next, I have a content filtering rule to catch everything that was NOT addressed to me and move it to Junk Email. And that's the problem; it seems the rule is firing for all retrieved emails, even those that are addressed to me.

Here is the rule - options and one condition:



And here is the header of an email that was retrieved and satisfied the rule - even tho it should not have.


So... what am I doing wrong here?
Derek Curtis Replied
6/22/2026 at 8:23 AM
Employee Post
Is there a snipped from the delivery log showing the Content Filter firing and moving the message? 
Derek Curtis
CCO
SmarterTools Inc.
D
Douglas Foster Replied
6/22/2026 at 10:09 AM
Derek, I wonder if it is the way negation is being handled.
It should be evaluated as:
NOT (name in To  or name in CC)
which will produce the intended result.
But maybe it is being evaluated as:
(NOT name in To) or (NOT name in CC)
which will evaluate to True unless the name is listed both places.
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