Skip to main content

Message sender

This condition lets you filter messages based on who sent them. The dialog has two tabs: Match by and Aliases. You have several ways to match the sender:

The Message sender dialog on its Match by tab, with match by email address, user, group or domain and exact, wildcard and regular expression matching

Email Address​

Enter the sender's email address and choose how to match it:

  • Exact match - The email address must match exactly (e.g. john@mshsoftware.com)
  • Wildcards - Use * to match patterns (e.g., *@mshsoftware.com matches anyone from that domain)
  • Regular expression - Use advanced pattern matching for complex rules

User​

Select a specific user from the list.

The condition will match if that user is the sender.

Group​

Choose a distribution list. The condition will match if the message was sent from the list itself, that is with the list's own address in From. Zimbra allows this through the sendAsDistList grant, which lets a user send as a list they have been given rights on.

With the Aliases checkbox ticked, an alias of the list matches as well.

The Message sender dialog with Match by set to Group, showing the list picker and its hint

In Group​

Choose a group from the list. The condition will match if the sender belongs to that group.

This asks whether the sender is a member of the group, so a message sent from the group's own address does not match it - use Group above for that.

This is useful when you want to apply the same rule to multiple users at once.

Domain​

Select a domain. The condition will match if the sender's email address belongs to that domain.

This makes it easy to handle all messages from a specific organization or mail server.

Aliases​

A Zimbra account can have alias addresses next to its primary address, for example john@mshsoftware.com with the alias john.smith@mshsoftware.com. The directory sync imports them, and they are listed in the aliases row on the user's page under Domains.

The Match the alias addresses as well checkbox, ticked by default, makes a User, Group or In Group match accept those aliases too: a message sent from john.smith@mshsoftware.com then matches a condition written for the user john@mshsoftware.com, and a message sent from an alias of a group member counts as sent by that member.

Untick it to match the primary address only. The condition then shows [no aliases] in the rule's condition list.

The checkbox has no effect on Email address and Domain matching, which compare the address exactly as it appears in the message.

The Aliases tab of the Message sender dialog, with the checkbox to match the account's alias addresses as well

Additional resources​