Item filter guide

With the release of Path of Exile: The Awakening (version 2.0.0), item filters were introduced as an optional feature for players to customize what they see when items drop in the game.

There are multiple options from colors, text size, borders and even sounds

Although the game does offer a default filter, there is no in-game system for editing them; end users can write and tailor their own filter using a text editor. (Though there are several scripts out there that can do the hard work for you).

I wrote the original guide while the BETA for Path of Exile: The Awakening was running, and through that time I edited in new options etc as they became available.

As requested via my Original Thread on Path of Exile I have now made it available here.

Creating your own
To create a Loot filter, you generally need to use a text editor such as NOTEPAD Some versions of NOTEPAD++ Do work, but most do not from reports. Currently the Encoding must be ANSI or UTF-8

Currently if any part of the file directory contains a non-english character it will not work - this includes your computer username

You can Edit your filter with the game still running. All you need to do is Open it, edit it and save it then press reload in the client.

The basic idea is a list of Show and Hide "blocks" that each specify certain conditions by information provided in each line. Anything matched by a Show block will be shown and anything matched by a Hide block will be hidden. If there are multiple conditions in a block then all of them must be matched for the block to match an item.

Code Breakdown


A section is defined as a *collection of blocks*, typically with a general purpose in mind. For example, the section outlined in red is designed to highlight certain gems. All sections in a script should begin with a 4-digit header code, which can be used to quickly jump from place to place within the script.

A block is defined as a *collection of lines*, which have a singular purpose. In the block in orange, rare gems such as Empower are highlighted. A block must begin with a "Show" or "Hide" line. A block ends when another line containing Show or Hide is read by the client.

A line is used to give instructions *to the block in which it is contained*. The line highlighted in yellow gives a blue-green background to quality gems, but does not affect the block below it, which affects only rare gems.

Sample Filter
Hide BaseType Flask Quality < 10 Show BaseType Flask Show Rarity >= Rare Show DropLevel >= 70 Hide BaseType "Scroll of Wisdom" Show Class Map Currency Show Class Gem PlayAlertSound 4 75 Show Quality 20 SetTextColor 0 0 255 Show Sockets 6 SetBorderColor 255 0 0 Show LinkedSockets >= 5 SetFontSize 45 Hide
 * 1) You can add comments in filters by placing them behind a # on a new line.
 * 2) This is a comment - The client will ignore this.

This Filter shows


 * All Flasks with 10% or more quality
 * Rare and unique items
 * Base items equal to and above level 70
 * Currency except Wisdom Scrolls
 * Maps
 * All Gems A sound will play
 * Normal and Magic Items with 20% quality This has blue text
 * 6 Socketed Items This has a Red Border
 * Items with 5 or more links This is shown with much larger text

Everything else will be hidden unless you press ALT

The most important thing to note is that blocks are read from top to bottom in the file by the client, The highest block takes priority, which means that you need to have the block that hides the scrolls, above before the line that shows the currency, because scrolls would also match the currency block.

This is why flasks come first in this list, They can not be rare and their droplevel is below 70.

An empty block matches all items, which means that the Hide at the end of the file effectively hides everything that wasn't specifically shown.

List of Item Classes
You can specify any from this list:

''If you specify part of a name it will match all that contain that part of the name. For example "Skill Gems" will match both "Active Skill Gems" and "Support Skill Gems"''

Using Quotation Marks for Classes
An example of why you should always use quotes for multi-word classes, consider the following:

I want to find all one-handed swords, thrusting and otherwise. So, I include the line Show Class One Hand Swords

When an item drops, this first looks for any class which includes "One." This will mark: One Hand Swords, Thrusting One Hand Swords, One Hand Axes, One Hand Maces

If it doesn't match those, it'll attempt to match on "Hand." This will mark: Two Hand Swords, Two Hand Axes, Two Hand Maces

Failing both of those, it'll attempt to match on "Swords." This will not mark anything additional, because One Hand Swords, Thrusting One Hand Swords, and Two Hand Swords have already been included.

Now, whatever styling you include will be applied to all of the above classes of weapons. If you really only want One Hand Swords and Thrusting One Hand Swords, use Show Class "One Hand Swords"

Condition Adjustment
Font Size Adjustment is 18-45 (32 is normal) SetFontSize 40

Volume Adjustment is 0-300 (yet to find out normal value) PlayAlertSound 7 59 Height and Width You can set the height and width for an item to be for your filter to apply. This would work well in the RGB linked items section where you might not want to be picking up RGB items such as 2hs that take up alot of space in your inventory. Show Width 1 Height >2 SocketGroup RGB This would show any rgb linked items that are 1 space wide and 3-4 high, eg. Daggers, Wands, Thrusting 1h Swords, 1h Swords. Note that the height condition is obsolete since all these items with the RGB link are by definition 3 or 4 squares high. Show Width 2 Height <= 3 SocketGroup RGB Would show Helmets, Boots, Gloves, Claws, Bows, Scepters, Body Armours and some 1h weapons. Here the second line is almost obsolete, as it only excludes Wands, Daggers and some 1h Swords.

Size conditions should be handled with care when dealing with many weapons, especially swords, and shields, as these occur in several differently sized types.

Color Options
Use a color picker such as in MSPaint



Any RGBA combo can be used for the color combinations 0 0 0 0 to 255 255 255 255

The A is the Alpha Channel which controls opacity/transparency. For the Alpha Channel I would recommend not using lower than 150 as it gets too hard to see.

Cutting your code down to size!
While most people are happy to put in the effort to make sure they haven't missed anything in their filter code, There are shortcuts to be taken without compromising your filter.

Cutting short your Class Types
For instance, while you might just want to see everything else that you haven't specifically listed you can simply put

Show

At the end of your file, which works the same way as Hide would.

You could want to see everything except Claws

This is where you could type out the whole list as below

Option 1:This option here could take you quite a while to type out. Show Class "Daggers" "Wands" "One Hand Swords" "Thrusting One Hand Swords" "One Hand Axes" "One Hand Maces" "Bows" "Staves" "Two Hand Swords" "Two Hand Axes" "Two Hand Maces" "Sceptres" But you do have options to make it easier!

Option 2: This option here cuts down on clutter within your code Show Class Dagger Wand "One Hand" Bow Stave "Two Hand" Sceptre Further, as the client doesn't need to have the entire group of items in quotation marks, "One Hand Swords" "Thrusting One Hand Swords" "One Hand Axes" "One Hand Maces" Would all be condensed down to "One Hand" or even "One" The same goes for Two Handed items "Two" - You could even show both of these, by quoting "Hand" Show Class Dagger Wand "Hand" Bow Stave Sceptre Option 3: You could take a much easier approach to hiding a single class of item. Hide Class "Claws"

ItemLevel Code and Process
If you wanted to see rare items, rare items between ilvl60 and ilvl74 and then rare items with an itemlevel of 75+ Show ItemLevel >= 60 ItemLevel <= 74 Rarity Rare SetBorderColor 255 200 0 Show ItemLevel >= 75 Rarity Rare SetBorderColor 30 144 255 Show Rarity Rare
 * 1) A Yellow border for Chaos recipe items
 * 1) A blue border for regal recipe items

Even this code above has a line that is unnecessary. If you swap the first 2 blocks around, you can eliminate an entire line of code. Show ItemLevel >= 75 Rarity Rare SetBorderColor 30 144 255 Show ItemLevel >= 60 ItemLevel <= 74 # this line is now obsolete; Rarity Rare SetBorderColor 255 200 0 Show Rarity Rare By doing this it does not need to check that it is ilvl74 or below for the Chaos recipe items, as it already knows from the previous block to show ilvl75+ items with a blue border. It then reads that for items with an item level of 60+ to put a yellow border around them.
 * 1) A blue border for regal recipe items
 * 1) A Yellow border for Chaos recipe items
 * 1) Show all other rare items

Saving your Filter
Once you have compiled you filter you then need to save it This example is named Highlight.filter




 * It needs to go into My Documents/My Games/Path of Exile folder
 * production_Config.ini must be in this folder
 * You must change the "Save as type" to All Files
 * When you name the file, you must type .filter after your file name.

Once you have saved your filter:
 * Open the Options Tab in game
 * Select your filter from the "List of Item Filters" at the bottom of the UI Page.

Troubleshooting
My filter is not working, what do I do?

Make sure your filter file is located in the same folder as your production_Config.ini file. If it is, then you need to make sure you've actually created a 'filter' file, and not a 'text' file with '.filter' in the name. To check this, right-click the filter and click Properties, if the file type is 'text', you did not change the file extension correctly. If you can not see your file extension, Show/Hide File Extensions in Windows

Do you have non-ASCII characters in your PC username? https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1250862/page/5#p10557794

Base Item name changes 19th May 2015

If you were to specify the following block It would show anything with Sai in the Items basetype, Such as Sai, Saint's Hauberk, Saintly Chainmail and Mosaic Kite Shield Show BaseType Sai You only wanted to see Sai so you need to narrow it down by adding a Class Show Class Dagger BaseType Sai This will now show Sai, but NOT Saint's Hauberk, Saintly Chainmail and Mosaic Kite Shield as it did before

Thanks to for the helpful Code Breakdown description!

Thanks to For the explanation on Using Quotation Marks for Classes.

I hope that helps!

Enjoy!