filtering IMAP by message body?

[Justin Willmert]

Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> Hopefully one of the gurus here can help with this one.  I reguarly
> receive over 4000 (yes, 4000) pieces of non-spam email each day, via
> an IMAP server.  I desperately need a means of filtering/sorting my
> email based on the contents of the message body (rather than just the
> header).  As far as I can tell, this isn't possible with thunderbird
> when using IMAP (only POP).  Anyone know of any reliable means of
> doing this with a different full-featured email client?
>
You could try going with procmail too. If your criteria is simple enough 
for a Thunderbird email filter to be able to do, then procmail should 
definitely have enough power to sort your mail correctly. An added bonus 
is that it's all sorted before you even start Thunderbird: you won't 
have to wait while TB downloads all of the messages, processes them, 
moves the messages, and then finally lets you get around to reading your 
mail. There are plenty of tutorials on how to make a procmail filter, 
and you don't even have to be an administrator to set up procmail (but 
you do need terminal or remote access). You didn't say whether the 
server is your own or if its on your ISP's or something. If it is your 
ISP's, then you can disregard my suggestion.

Justin