cc is an entry in the message header. it does not matter if you cc'ed 1 or 50 people, one of the entries is that email address

Matt said

cc is an entry in the message header. it does not matter if you cc'ed 1 or 50 people, one of the entries is that email address

So, answering my question: I can't search for one single Cc. Is that correct?

Just tried this on my computer. "CC" "is" "[email protected]" I got a list of messages in the search. I checked several and I was CC'd in all of the messages listed. So the search performed correctly.

If one email was CC'd to three people - one CC being you, then CC is your email address. The fact that other people may also be CC'd in that email is of no consequence as there is only one email copied. The point is you were CC'd in that email so the search returns the result.

It sounds as if you are trying to locate an email in which only you were CC'd and no others. I would suggest you add a few additional conditions to narrow down the search parammeters. eg: the email may have been sent TO a particular person and you were CC'd. or you may know the email was received in the last month or you may know part of the subject.

Example of search conditions. 'Match all of the following' - so returning only emails that match all of the following conditions in that email.

• "CC" "is" "[email protected]"
• "TO" "is" "[email protected]"
• "Subject" "contains" "meeting"
• "Date" "is after" "31/08/2016"

Toad-Hall said

So the search performed correctly.

I don't really agree with that, because there are two filters which perform similar operations: "is" and "contains". From my point of view, "contains" should return a list of emails, and in that list, I am one of the CCs (no matter how much there are), and the other filter, "is", sounds like a "is equal to", which for me is one single possible value for a field. Maybe it's just a semantical issue, but I don't think that's a big deal, because Thunderbird is being used for years and they never changed that.

It sounds as if you are trying to locate an email in which only you were CC'd and no others.

Yes, precisely. I have no other options for matching, only the Cc. This might be a problem since the Cc field might also contain names.

Note: I've tried to use the filter "doesn't contain" and then I did:

"Cc" "doesn't contain" ","

For my surprise, I got results which CONTAIN a comma in the Cc. Is that supposed to happen?

I suspect that since the comma is a separator, or a meta character, it's not valid as search target. As far as I understand it, "is", "begins with", "ends with" and "contains" simply control where in an email address the match is to be searched for. All email addresses in a given field (such as Cc:) are treated separately and individually.

I am wondering if FiltaQuilla and regular expressions may help. It's possible that a search such as "^[email protected]$" would limit it to just the target address and nothing else.

But I'll have to send myself some contrived messages to check it.

Nope, there is no regex on the Cc: field.

May be able to do it as a more generalized header search…

re :From my point of view, "contains" should return a list of emails, and in that list, I am one of the CCs (no matter how much there are), and the other filter, "is", sounds like a "is equal to", which for me is one single possible value for a field.

Having done more extensive testing, I can understand your reasoning and agree that it is not working as expected.

so I have created a bug report and would appreciate you adding any additional information such as what OS and version of Thunderbird you are using. Please also 'vote' for the bug. It is located near the top:

• Importance: with 1 vote

You may need to register to post comments or vote. Please note that bugzilla is strickly for reporting and posting information on bugs and not a help forum.

• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302075

No, I don't like that. It is a reinterpretation of what "is" and "contains" mean and so would be inconsistent with how these idents work in other fields. Find some new and distinct wording for it and I might support your bug.

In theory, FiltaQuilla will deliver just the CC's, and if it does, a regular expression could be used to discover if yours is the only address in that field. However at the moment I can't make it work.

Well that's how eg: subject works. 'Is' meaning it is exactly this and nothing else.

If you use 'Subject' and 'IS': you have to type the exact wording of all of the subject line then you get all responses with exact wording. example

• Re: Search messages containing only one specific Cc

But if you only write :

• Re: Search messages

then there is no result unless you use 'Contains' instead of 'Is'.

By this definition: Cc and IS email address should only return matches where that is the only email address. Cc and Contains email address should return any email showing Cc's that include email address.

It would seem that when searching on Cc for email address there is a different use than to eg: Subject.

It does not search on exact phasing, so if you enter exactly what is included in the source view code eg: name <email address> and 'cc' and 'is' you will not get any results.

I can enter variants and get various results. Cc and contains eg: " ' name' " <email address> will return different results to eg: " name " <email address> again different results when using eg: name <email address> So the contains reacts to small variants as written in the source html.

but IS is bit more exacting and does not recognise the <> or " " etc but will return results only on the email address, although it treats each email address as a separate entity.

So the comma separating the various email address's seems to be interpreted as completely separate Cc's, so each email address would be regarded as 'IS' and 'Contains'.