Overview
This article explains how to create a simple message filter that moves an incoming email to a specific directory. The following example shows how to filter emails sent from an Apple Mail application.
This example only moves email. It does NOT teach the filters to learn what is and is not spam. To teach the filter to learn what is spam, you must log in to Webmail and manually tag the message.
Example headers
This example shows how to filter mail sent by the Apple Mail application. When an email is sent by this application, the headers will show the following line:
X-Mailer: Apple Mail
The instructions below catch any messages with the same header line and move them into a specific folder.
Creating the custom filter
- Navigate to Message Filters.
- Click the Edit button to the right of an address to open the filter page.
- Click the Add New Filter button.
- The add new filter page opens where you can set up a filter. Make your selections from the available options.
- Choose your filter's conditions from the first two dropdowns. This example is looking for something in the header, so its Headers and contains.
- Enter the exact content you're looking for in the third field. In this example, it's X-Mailer: Apple Mail.
To ensure you catch the text, add a period and asterisk before the code like this:
.*texthere - Choose the radio button Move it to folder:.
- Type in the name of the folder you wish this email to be sent to in the text field under the radio button.
- Click the Add Filter button at the bottom when you're finished creating your rule.
What to expect
If an email is sent to you from an Apple Mail application, it will now be moved to your custom Apple Messages folder once received.
You can create header filters like this to match other emails, based on details in their headers. By reviewing the message headers of an email you would like to filter, you can create your own custom header-based filters.