Mail 3.0 Help
Managing messages using rules
You can set up rules to filter incoming messages or reorganize messages you’ve already received. You can have Mail automatically perform actions, such as file, forward, or highlight a message, based on conditions or criteria, such as the message’s sender, recipients, subject, or content.
To manage messages using rules:
Choose Mail > Preferences, and then click Rules.
To see an example of a rule, select one of the provided rules and click Edit.
Click Add Rule, and type a descriptive name for the rule.
Indicate whether any one or all of the conditions must be true for the actions to be performed.
Set the conditions necessary for the rule to apply to a message.
You can add other message headers to a condition. For example, you might add the Subject header to search for and process related messages. Choose Edit Header List from the conditions pop-up menu and specify a header.
Choose actions to perform on messages that meet the conditions. To specify multiple criteria and actions, click the Add (+) button.
If you have multiple rules, they’re applied in the order in which they appear in the Rules list. Drag a rule in the list to change its order. Mail stops applying rules to a message when the message is transferred to another mailbox, or if the Stop Evaluating Rules action is specified.
When you disable an account, rules applied to the account’s mailboxes are also disabled; you must enable the rules again after you enable the account.
To apply rules to messages you’ve already received, select the messages in the viewer window and then choose Message > Apply Rules.