topic Re: Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail in Internet

Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail

ap — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:47:18 GMT

I used to have several email filtering rules that would forward emails coming from a specific email address or with a specific keyword to another email address. Now they are all gone! Has anybody else experienced this and is there a way to get them back? I don't remember them all to rebuild them from scratch.

Thanks.

Re: Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail

WelshTerrier — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:49:32 GMT

Good Day & Welcome.

Thank you for posting your question.

Bell Webmail includes two similar but distinctly different options for handling mail.

Mail filtering & Mail forwarding

All of Bell's Webmail mail settings are stored within the individual email account. If for any reason any of the mail settings, e.g. Mail filters, forwarding, etc. have been invertedly deleted and / or not saved after being created, then your only recourse is to recreate them.

Bell's webmail filtering is somewhat simplistic to use. There are so many variables that you can set making it somewhat difficult to explain in a tutorial.

Assign your filter a Name. For ease of use, pick a name that reflects the filtering criteria you are searching on
Set the email conditions or rules for filtering the incoming email messages based on criteria you select.
Enter the key information that the filter rule will search on.
Decide on the action in terms of what the mail filter is going to do with message and or the folder you wish to save the message in. E.g. Put Message in, Forward message or Delete message.

You can set up multiple mail filters in webmail. They can all be active with different criteria. The search on a message stops when a rule that is set is encountered. More than one filter can apply to a message. Stop more filters does just that. The message is no longer filtered beyond the rule that is applied, and the condition that is found.

If you wish to just forward your Bell webmail to another address, you can do so by setting up Bell webmail forwarding. Please refer to this weblink:

Setting up Bell email : Managing mail forwarding settings

Unfortunately, you will need to rebuild each of these rules by scratch.

Take care.

Re: Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail

ap — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:49:23 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I used filters because I only wanted to forward certain emails based on specific criteria. As you pointed out, the forwarding feature merely sends everything to another email address.

What I don't understand is how my "filters" disappeared after being there for several years. That's a bit concerning. If my filters could just randomly disappear, what's to stop the mail system from just losing my emails too? And since my Bell mail is using IMAP instead of POP3, if they disappear from the server side, when Outlook on my PC synchronizes, they will be deleted there too.

Re: Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail

WelshTerrier — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:49:07 GMT

Good Day @ap

Thank you for your reply. I can only speculate on any number of additional factors that may result in clearing these filters.

Just some further thoughts for your consideration:

Have you made any changes to your browser settings in terms of clearing your browser data? Cache, Cookies, History, data, etc.
Have you inadvertently reset your browser settings back to their default values?
If you also use a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook on your devices, filters created on the app often don't sync back to the Bell webmail server.

Corrupted cookies or an outdated browser cache can cause the Bell webmail interface to stop displaying your filters correctly. You can try the following to see if this makes a difference:

Log out of your web browser. Clear your browser's cache and cookies. Close your browser. Re-open your browser, then log back in to see if your filters reappear.
Verify & adjust your Clear browser data settings.

Take care.

Re: Email filtering rules disappeared from webmail

ap — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:48:58 GMT

Thanks again. I don't think it's the browser because they were missing from whichever device (desktop, phone, laptop) I logged into Webmail from. I know Chrome synch's bookmarks, but I'm not sure about cookies, etc. So I don't think that would have flowed from one device to the other.

Regardless, I've started to rebuild filters as I remember what I need. Sigh....