Filter rules

Order of operations

Incoming messages are processed using these rules:

1. If the Enable NekoSMS option is disabled, allow it.
2. If the Whitelist contacts option is enabled and it is from a contact, allow it.
3. If it matches a whitelist rule, allow it.
4. If it matches a blacklist rule, block it.
5. Otherwise, allow it.

There are no exceptions. You cannot give a blacklist rule a higher priority than a whitelist rule.

Filter rule fields

Rules can match against the message sender, body, or both. If you enter a pattern in both the sender and body tabs, the message will only be matched if both patterns match the corresponding field.

Note that the sender field can be a bit weird. In your SMS app, it probably displays as (123)-456-7890 or some other format. However, NekoSMS only sees the unformatted sender number. For most senders, it either looks like +11234567890 or 10086. Many SMS apps display this in a "message details" page, which you can find by long-pressing on the message in your inbox.

Examples:

• Sender contains 1234 -> Sender contains 1234, body can be anything
• Body contains hello -> Sender can be anything, body contains hello
• Sender contains 1234; Body contains hello -> Sender contains 1234 and body contains hello

Filter rule modes

Currently, NekoSMS supports these matching modes:

• Regular expression
• Wildcard
• Text contains
• Text starts with
• Text ends with
• Text equals

Regex mode

Regular expressions are matched in find mode - that is, they will match any substring in the text. For example, a pattern of ABCD will match ABCD, ABCDEFG, and 12ABCD34. If you only want to match ABCD, surround your pattern with ^ and $. See this link for more information.

When using Unicode escape sequences, make sure to match against the NFC-normalized form. For example, if you want to match the text はづき, your pattern must either be はづき or \u306F\u3065\u304D (は+づ+き), NOT \u306F\u3064\u3099\u304D (は+つ+◌゙ +き). If you are not using Unicode escape sequences in your regex patterns, you can safely ignore this.

Wildcard mode

Wildcards are essentially a watered-down version of regular expressions. There are 2 special characters in wildcard mode: *, which will match 0 or more characters, and ?, which will match exactly 1 character. Unlike regular expressions, wildcard matching is done in match mode - that is, a pattern of ABCD will only match ABCD. To match any text with ABCD in the middle, surround the pattern with *s. There are no escape characters in wildcard mode; for more control, use a regex instead.

Examples:

• H?llo matches Hello, Hullo, Hallo, etc.
• Po* matches Po, Potato, Poi, Poiiiiii, PoiPoiPoi, etc.
• * matches literally everything

Text modes

These are pretty self-explanatory. You can interpret them like wildcards:

• Contains ABCD = Wildcard *ABCD*
• Starts with ABCD = Wildcard ABCD*
• Ends with ABCD = Wildcard *ABCD
• Equals ABCD = Wildcard ABCD