How to use Mac OS X Mail (10.4) with GUMail: Creating Rules

Rules can be highly customized and we cannot cover all their possible permutations. These instructions will take you through setting up a fairly common rule and should give you an overview of the process. This rule will look for mail sent from "Joe Hoya" and put it into a special folder called "Important mail."

1. Start the Mail program
   
   
2. Click on the Mail menu (at the top of the screen), then Click on "Preferences..." This will bring up the Preferences panel.
   
   
3. Click on the Rules icon to bring up the preference screen.
   
   
4. Click on the "Add Rule" button. This will bring up the rule creation panel.
   
   
5. Next to "Description," type a unique name for the rule. Choose something that will be distinguishable from any other rules you create, something in plain language that makes sense to you.
   
   Conditions are the things that our rule looks for. The simple rule we're creating here will have only one condition (i.e., "look for mail sent from Joe Hoya"). More complex rules can have many conditions (for example, "look for messages sent from Joe Hoya which have the word bulldog in the subject line and include saxaman in the CC list").
   
   
6. If your rule will have more than one condition, you must choose:
   
   • Do you want the rule to take action if any of the conditions are present, or
   • Do you want the rule to apply only when all the conditions are present?
   
   
   
7. Select what parameter of the message (e.g. subject, to, from) your filter will look at. In this case, our filter will look for mail sent from Joe Hoya, so we will select "from" as the target of our filter.
   
   
8. Next, type in the text that the filter will look for. In this case, our filter will look for mail sent from Joe Hoya, so we type "Joe Hoya" in the box beside "contains".
   
   Note: the text is not case sensitive; this filter will find Joe Hoya, joe hoya and JOE HOYA.
   
   
9. Next, decide what you want your filter to do: the filter can either change the color of the messages, play a sound when they come in; delete them; move them to a specified folder; forward them; or do several other things. Click on the up/down arrow, then click on the action you want. In our case, we choose "Transfer Message".
   
   
10. To choose a destination for your transferred message, click on the up/down arrow, then click on the folder you want from the list that pops up.
    
    
11. When you set your rule up the way you want it, click on the "OK" button.
    
    
12. This will take you back to the Preferences panel; Click on the red dot to close this panel.