Testing a rule
Two ways to see what a rule does before it does it.
Dry run
A rule marked as a dry run evaluates every item normally and records what it would have done, but changes nothing. No links, no tags, no dismissals.
Turn it on when you create the rule, leave it for a day or two, then read the execution log in Analytics. If the matches are the ones you expected, turn dry run off.
This is the safe default for anything with a Dismiss action.
Test against real items
Inbox → Rules → open a rule → Test runs it against items already in your inbox and shows which ones match. It is the faster loop when you are still writing conditions — no waiting for new mail to arrive.
Use it to answer one question: does this condition catch what I meant and nothing else?
When a rule doesn't match
Work down this list.
Is it enabled? Disabled rules do not run.
Did an earlier rule stop processing? Rules run in priority order, lowest first. An earlier rule with Stop processing ends the chain for that item. Check the priorities.
Is the condition testing the field you think? From is the sender's address; Domain is the sending domain. A rule looking for harrowandco.com in From will miss accounts@mail.harrowandco.com if you used equals rather than contains.
Are all the conditions matching? Every condition has to match. Two conditions that cannot both be true — Item type is email and Item type is event — match nothing, silently.
Is it a regex problem? matches regex is unforgiving. Test with contains first and switch to regex only when you need it.
Is the item yours? Rules only run against the inbox of the person who created them.
Related
- Analytics and audit — what fired, and what it did
- Creating a rule