When I used Kontact, I used filters heavily to sort my incoming email into various folders. Since switching to Thunderbird, I've been slowly recreating these filters as new mail arrives. This seems like the perfect time to rethink how I use message filters.
The way I see it, there are two basic ways to filter messages. Either I can have lots of filters, or I can have lots of criteria. An example is in order.
Assume that I get emails from four people (Boss, CEO, Intern, and StackOverflow) that I want to sort into two folders, "Stack" and "Work"
Option A:
Filter 1: if FROM contains "Boss" -> move to "Work"
Filter 2: if FROM contains "CEO" -> move to "Work"
Filter 3: if FROM contains "Intern" -> move to "Work"
Filter 4: if FROM contains "StackOverflow" -> move to "Stack"
Option B:
Filter 1: if FROM contains "Boss" OR FROM contains "CEO" OR FROM contains "Intern" -> move to "Work"
Filter 2: if FROM contains "StackOverflow" -> move to "Stack"
Assuming that when I'm done, I'll have about a hundred different criteria to filter on, is one of these methods better than the other from a performance standpoint?
