Automatic Email Processor - Changelog

• New: Messages can be reprocessed as new directly from the processing log. The new context menu entry "Reprocess message as new" in the "Successful Processing", "Error", and "No Match" tabs presents the message to the program again as if it were a new, unknown message, for example after adjusting a profile's filter criteria or after fixing the cause of an error. Tasks that have already been performed may be performed again.
• New: Custom subject and text for notification emails. For each notification type of a profile (successful processing, error, no match, missing attachment), a custom message text with placeholders can now be defined, for example with the storage folder of the saved files as a clickable link or, for error notifications, with the task that caused the error and the error message.
• Improved: Warning when saving a profile if email notifications are enabled but no default sending account has been set. Previously, this was only noticed afterwards via the error log.
• Improved: When relinking references to deleted accounts, the default account of this installation can now also be selected as the target.
• Improved: Automatic and manual backups now only briefly pause processing instead of stopping and restarting it.
• Improved: If the connection test of an email account fails, the error message now indicates the affected server (incoming or outgoing server).
• Fixed: With certain outgoing mail servers, the connection test and sending emails failed if the computer name contains a character that is not allowed in network names (e.g. an underscore).
• Improved: The connection test of an email account now reliably stops after a short time even if the outgoing mail server does not respond.

• Fixed: Emails could remain unprocessed if the program or the service was closed in the middle of a check run. If closing the program (e.g., due to a restart of the program or the computer) coincided exactly with the moment a new email was about to be checked, that email was incorrectly classified as "no match" permanently and was not processed later either. Such emails are now processed regularly during the next check run. Emails already affected can be processed retroactively using the "Catch Up" function.
• Improved: Automatic backups no longer interrupt a check run in progress. If an automatic backup is due while emails are being processed, it now waits for a pause in processing.

• Fixed: Timeout in the folder selection for Microsoft 365 mailboxes with a very large number of folders. The folder selection (e.g., for monitored folders or for the destination folder when moving) regularly failed with a timeout for mailboxes containing thousands of folders.
• New: "Refresh" button in the folder selection. It reloads the folder list directly from the server at any time, for example after a folder has just been created.

• New: Warning for Microsoft 365 accounts whose domain receives email at a different provider. In this constellation, the account connects to an empty Microsoft mailbox, so no emails are found and folders appear to be missing. The program now points this out when the account is created, during the account test, in the folder selection, and in the log for unreachable folders, and recommends setting up the account as an IMAP account.
• Fixed: Windows service incorrectly reported as misconfigured. In some cases, the options page for the Windows service classified a properly running service as incorrectly set up and offered an unnecessary correction.
• Improved: Transfer of references to a previously removed account. When creating a new account and when relinking, the sender accounts of email notifications, automatic replies, and the report are now transferred as well, not just the references in the profiles.
• Improved: Uninstallation. Uninstalling the program now also removes processing services that were set up through the program.

• Improved: Overview sheet of the Excel report. The overview now shows the number of completed tasks for each task type, for example saved, moved, or deleted emails, saved attachments, downloaded files, and created database entries. The counters are also included in the text of the report email.
• Improved: Column headers of the detail sheets of the Excel report. The column headers now appear in the selected program language; previously they were always in German.
• Improved: Copying a log entry to the clipboard. The copy now also includes the "Task" line with all tasks and operations of the entry.
• Improved: "Pending processing" sheet of the Excel report. Instead of a single date column, "Received" and "Postponed until" are now shown.
• Improved: Header of the Excel report. It now shows the exact program version and the report period including the time.
• Improved: Log. The CSV export now additionally contains the "Task" column. The "Task" line of a log entry is now also shown when all operations were already covered by a previous profile.

• New: "Windows Service" options page. The new page continuously shows the state of the processing service (set up, started, startup type, account) including an easy-to-understand overall assessment, and bundles all actions: set up, start, stop, correct, and remove the service - each with a single administrator confirmation. The "Use external processor" option has moved there from the "Processing" page.
• New: Set up the Windows service directly from the program. When enabling the "Use external processor" option, the program now offers to set up the processing service itself: a dialog asks for the service name, Windows user account, and password; the program then creates the service with automatic start and recovery and starts it. The manual route described in the guide remains available.
• Improved: Incorrectly configured services are detected and corrected. If an existing service points to the wrong program or the --service parameter is missing (typical symptom: the service start hangs), the program now names the problem specifically and offers the correction with a single click. The note shown when no service is set up now also links to the step-by-step guide. If the program window is accidentally started as a service, it now exits immediately instead of continuing to run invisibly in the background.
• New: Folder and file names that are too long are now shortened automatically when saving. Windows allows at most 255 characters per folder or file name - with placeholders such as the email subject in the storage path, this limit was quickly exceeded and saving failed. Names that are too long are now shortened automatically - preferring the subject part so that, for example, date and sender remain in the name; the file extension is preserved as well. Fixed folder and file names without placeholders are never shortened. In addition, an optional maximum total path length can be set - helpful for storage locations synchronized with OneDrive or SharePoint.

• New: "Default account of this installation" can now also be selected as sending account. The entry is now additionally available for the "Automatic reply" and "Forward email" tasks as well as in the program options for notifications, automatic replies, and the Excel report by email. These settings thus automatically follow the default account designated on the respective computer and remain unaffected when an email account is removed and recreated. If no default account is designated, the error log points this out when sending.
• Fixed: Microsoft 365 mailboxes with a very large number of folders ran into the request limit (error 429). For monitored folders with the "Include subfolders" option, the complete folder structure was reloaded on every check, with one server request per folder. For mailboxes with thousands of folders, Microsoft 365 then permanently throttled all requests ("ApplicationThrottled"), folders were considered unreachable, and emails were sometimes processed days late. The problem has been fixed. The refresh interval of the folder list can be adjusted under "Options → Check Interval" (default: 15 minutes); when subfolders are included, the "Monitored folder" dialog points out that newly created subfolders are only taken into account after this interval. The account error message now explains throttling in plain language.
• Improved: Clearer name for the default sending account. The selection entry "AEP default account" in the "Automatic reply" and "Forward email" tasks is now called "Default sending account (from the notification options)" to avoid confusion with the "Default account of this installation". In addition, the error log hints of the standstill notification now appear in the selected program language.
• Improved: Help reference when the private key is missing. If an S/MIME-encrypted email cannot be decrypted due to a missing matching certificate, the error log message now links to a new FAQ page with step-by-step instructions for setting up the certificate.

• New: Placeholders for the next working day after the received date. The new placeholder family "NextWorkdayAfterEmail..." (day, month, month name, year) returns the date of the next working day after the email's received date, for example for automatic confirmation emails with a value date. Working days are Monday to Friday; holidays entered in the program options in the "Business hours" section are skipped as well. The new placeholders are available in the placeholder menu under "Receipt date".
• Fixed: Profiles using the "Default account of this installation" could no longer be saved. Since version 4.3.4, the profile editor incorrectly reported that the selected email account was no longer available as soon as a monitored folder or a move/copy target refers to the default account of this installation. The problem has been fixed; the profiles themselves do not need to be changed.
• Fixed: Saving failed for very long file names, even though the name itself was still valid. This mainly affected names generated from long subject lines via placeholders, for example with the tasks "Save email" and "Save attachments". The problem has been fixed; temporary files left behind after a hard program termination are now removed automatically.
• Improved: Warning when deleting the default account. When deleting an email account that is designated as the "Default account of this installation", the program now points this out and also counts profiles that refer to this account via the default account. In addition, the message shown when saving a profile whose monitored folder refers to a deleted account now names the correct place ("Monitored folders" instead of a task).
• Improved: Connection test shows complete error messages. In the "Send/receive test message" window, long error messages were cut off on the right; they are now wrapped and the window can be resized. The hint shown when the encrypted connection fails now also mentions untrusted server certificates as a possible cause (common with in-house mail servers that use their own certificate).

• Fixed: Closing the profile or program settings via the window close button kept discarded changes in effect. If a settings window was closed using the close button in the title bar or with Alt+F4 instead of "Cancel", the changes made last were kept and could be saved unchecked by a later action. Closing via the window close button now works like "Cancel".
• Fixed: "Clear error logs" had no effect on a running processing process. The processing process wrote the entries that had just been deleted back to the log with the next error. In addition, a message is now shown if clearing was not possible because one of the log files is currently in use by another program.
• Fixed: Changing the password storage was carried out as soon as it was selected. Moving the stored passwords between the Windows Credential Manager and the configuration file now happens only once the settings are confirmed with "OK" or "Apply". With "Cancel", everything remains unchanged.
• Fixed: The automatic backup could interrupt ongoing processing in the middle of a message. A message that had already been forwarded or printed could then be processed a second time on the next run. The backup now waits until the current message has been completed.
• Fixed: When running as a Windows service, the backup reported success even though processing kept running. The backup now waits until processing pauses briefly; an operation already under way is finished first. If processing runs as a service under a different user account and is therefore out of reach, the backup is still created, but the error log points out that files contained in it may be incomplete.
• Fixed: Changed settings were sometimes not picked up by a running processing process. This affected running as a Windows service under an account with different language settings, as well as the case where the settings were saved twice within the same second, for example via "Apply" followed immediately by "OK". The processing process then kept working with the old values until it was restarted.
• New: The current state is backed up automatically before application data is restored. There is also a confirmation prompt before the start, and if the restoration fails, the previous state is restored. The window remains usable while this happens. At the end, the restoration is confirmed before the application closes for the restart.
• Fixed: A damaged log database permanently disabled the log view. The database is now restored automatically from the processing data; if that is not possible, it is created anew. You receive a notice in both cases.
• Fixed: A failed report delivery was repeated endlessly without a pause. If the mail server was unavailable, the report was regenerated on every polling cycle and held up processing. After a failure, the program now waits 15 minutes. The manually created report no longer blocks the user interface.
• Fixed: After applying changed settings, processing could continue with default settings. If the settings file was locked by another program at that moment, for example by a virus scanner, processing did not adopt the new values but the defaults. The previous settings now remain active in that case.

• Fixed: Subfolders created from placeholders could contain invalid characters. If a folder name is built, for example, from the subject (such as in the tasks "Save email", "Save attachments", or "Download files"), characters that are invalid in folder names, such as ":", are now replaced with "-", just as with file names (same behavior as in version 3). Names reserved by Windows, such as "NUL", as well as trailing dots or spaces in folder names are also defused automatically.
• Fixed: The manually created Excel report was empty. The report created via the log contained no entries even though emails had been processed. The report sent automatically by email was not affected.
• Fixed: Date and time in the Excel report were displayed as numeric values. The "Processed" and "Date" columns are now real, properly formatted date cells and can be sorted and filtered in Excel. In addition, the sheet of pending processing operations now shows the received date in local time.

• New: "Save as PDF file" in the context menu of the log. The email of a log entry can now be saved directly as a PDF file - either in portrait format, in landscape format, or in both formats in one step (the file names then receive a corresponding suffix). The PDF file starts with a header block containing sender, recipient, date, and subject; the most recently used destination folder is remembered for the next use.
• Improved: PDF output with narrower page margins and without cropped images. Images that are wider than the page are now scaled down proportionally instead of being cropped at the right edge. Both also apply to the "Save email" task in PDF format.
• Fixed: The notification sound of a profile was also played for emails without a match. The sound is now only played if the profile has actually processed an email successfully - no longer for every checked email.
• Fixed: Notification emails for delayed processing were sent too early and twice. The emails "Successful processing" and "Missing attachment" were already sent when a delayed processing was scheduled and a second time after the delay had elapsed. They are now sent exactly once during the actual processing run.
• Improved: The notice of the catch-up window now states the received date of the oldest and newest existing message. If there are messages in the monitored folders but none in the selected period, it is now immediately apparent how the period needs to be adjusted.
• Improved: The connection test of the account management now states the likely cause of failures in plain language. Instead of just the technical error message, the same understandable notice as in the account test now appears - for example, pointing to an SSL scan by security software or to an unsuitable port and encryption setting.

• Fixed: With some IMAP providers (e.g. IONOS), subfolders of the inbox were not detected. The subfolders neither appeared in the folder selection nor were they monitored with the option "Include subfolders" enabled. The problem has been fixed; loading the folder selection is also faster now.
• Fixed: A repeated profile or version 3 import could create duplicate lookup tables. The import now reliably skips existing entries; existing duplicates are cleaned up automatically at program start.
• Improved: Understandable message when the mail server rejects an unencrypted sign-in. Instead of technical original texts, the error log now states the likely cause including the remedy (check port and encryption of the incoming server; port 993 with SSL/TLS is common).
• Improved: Routine short disconnects of the real-time monitoring no longer appear in the error log. Some providers disconnect the real-time connection several times a day; the connection is re-established immediately and no emails are lost. Such disconnects are now only noted in the diagnostics log.
• Improved: The "Processing standstill" warning now only appears if no account can be checked at all. The failure of a single account is still reported per account but no longer triggers a global alarm.
• Improved: More informative support backup and more compact diagnostics logs. The backup for support purposes now contains an overview of the account settings (server, port, encryption mode) without passwords or sign-in tokens, as well as a diagnostics log of the user interface. The processing diagnostics log is written more compactly and therefore covers considerably longer periods.
• Fixed: The notification sound of a profile remained silent for MP3 files. The file selection also offered MP3 files, but the sound playback only supports WAV files - a stored MP3 file therefore remained silent without any error message. The file selection now only offers WAV files, and a file in an unsupported format is clearly reported instead of being silently ignored.
• New: "Test sound" button in the notification settings. The sound file stored in the profile can now be played for testing directly while setting it up. A notice below the input field points out a missing file or an unsupported format.
• Updated: Security update of an internal component. A program component used for encryption functions has been updated to the latest version, which fixes vulnerabilities reported by Microsoft.

• New: "Default account of this installation" for centrally distributed profiles. In the email accounts, an account can now be designated using the "As default account" button (indicated by a star symbol in the list). Monitored folders and the target accounts of the tasks "Move email" and "Copy email" can use the entry "Default account of this installation" instead of a fixed account - at runtime, the program automatically substitutes the account designated on the respective computer. Centrally maintained profiles distributed via profile export thus work on every workstation without re-linking, even when updated profiles are distributed repeatedly. When importing profiles from version 3, the former placeholder <DefaultEmailAddress> (including its variants) is automatically converted to the default account.
• New: When creating an email account, the program now offers to adopt references to previously removed accounts. If an account was removed and re-created (a common repair attempt for sign-in problems), the profile references previously pointed nowhere and had to be re-linked afterwards. Now the program asks right after the account is created whether the affected references should be transferred to the new account in one step.
• Fixed: "Test account" failed for providers whose login name is not an email address (e.g. HIN). The test message used the login name as the sender and recipient address. Now the sender address stored in the account is used.
• New: Server presets for the Swiss provider HIN (hin.ch). When creating a HIN account, the server details are entered automatically; a notice explains that the sign-in uses the HIN login name and a mail token.
• Improved: Clearer messages for problems with the Microsoft 365 sign-in. If the sign-in cannot be renewed in the background because the Windows sign-in service does not know the account on the computer, the error log now specifically names the missing work or school account connection as the cause, including the remedy. Understandable messages now also appear for an already open sign-in window and for a canceled sign-in instead of technical original texts.

Automatic Email Processor 4 is a completely redesigned major release. The program no longer requires an installed Outlook client and instead connects directly to your email accounts - via IMAP, POP3 or the Microsoft Graph API for Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com. Exchange Server mailboxes can still be connected as long as the server's IMAP service is enabled.

• Direct access to email accounts - no Outlook installation required; native support for IMAP, POP3 as well as Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com (via the Microsoft Graph API)
• Real-time detection of new emails via IMAP IDLE and Microsoft Graph delta sync
• Redesigned user interface with a clear profile list, status and processing indicators and consistent keyboard navigation
• Bounce detection for forwarded emails - automatic recognition of undeliverable messages (DSN/NDR) and notification of the sender
• Service and headless mode for unattended operation as a separate program instance
• Profile migration from earlier versions - existing profiles from Automatic Email Processor 2 and 3 are imported with automatic format detection
• Enhanced security - AES-V2 encryption, TLS certificate pinning, password storage in the Windows Credential Manager (DPAPI) as well as protection against ZIP bombs and path manipulation
• Comprehensive online help and step-by-step instructions, accessible directly from the program