Filtering your email

Posted May 13th, 2008 by davisry

Q. How do I set up 'filters' to manage my email?

A. The exact method for filtering messages varies depending on the
webmail system or mail client you are using. Below are instructions for
a few common systems; check your mail client's Help system for more
details.

How to filter messages in Earlham SquirrelMail:

Login to SquirrelMail.
Once you are logged in, you'll notice a set of red links at the top of the page. Choose "Options".
This will bring a page with two columns. The forth option down on the left column is labelled "Message Filters". Click on that link.
Now you are ready to being setting up your filter. Choose what messages you want to sort through. This can either be all messages in your inbox, or it can just be all unread messages in your inbox. Once you've made the choice you will want to click on the red link titled "New" located just below the dropdown menu.
This gives us three more settings. First we will decide where the criteria used in the filter is located at. If you want all messages from a certain person to go into a certain folder, you would leave it on the default choice of "From". If you want to gather messages with a specific subject line, you would choose "Subject".
The next setting is the "Contains" field. Here is where you will enter the criteria for your filter. As stated above, if you chose "From" in the last setting, here is where you would type the email address of the person you wish to filter into another folder. If you chose "Subject", you would type the specific subject line (or part of a subject line) you want to be on the lookout for.
Next we'll set what folder the messages will go to. Whatever folder you choose here is where you will find all the messages you are sorting with this filter. When finished you can hit "Submit".

Your messages are now set to be automatically sorted, based on the criteria provided!

Filtering instructions for other mail systems

Thunderbird (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Filters)

Outlook (http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000781.htm)

Gmail (http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6579)

AOL (http://help.channels.aol.com/kjump.adp?articleId=217148)

Yahoo mail (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/manage/manage-35.html)