Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
•
iCloud:
Log in to your account at
iCloud.com
.
Click Mail, and then click the gear
icon in the lower-left corner and choose Rules from the pop-up menu. Click
Add a Rule to configure your first rule.
•
Gmail:
Log in to your Gmail account (using
this link
or whichever URL you nor-
mally use for a Google Apps account with a custom domain). From the gear
pop-up menu at the top of the page, choose Settings, and then click Filters. Click
Create a New Filter to begin setting up a custom filter.
For local rules in Mavericks Mail, read on.
Use Rules in Mavericks Mail
Whether or not you use server-based rules, Mail in Mavericks has an excellent rule capability.
Mail applies rules automatically to messages as they are delivered to your Inbox. I wanted
to spell that out explicitly because Mail does
not
apply rules to messages that arrive in other
mailboxes, even if they're unread—for instance, if you have a server-based rule that moves a
message to your Family mailbox, that message bypasses your Inbox and is therefore exempt
from being processed by Mail's rules.
(You can manually apply rules to selected messages, wherever they reside, by choosing Mes-
sage > Apply Rules—for example, if you want Mail to use rules to re-sort messages that were
moved into the wrong mailbox by the server. However, note that that command applies
all
your rules, not just a specific rule. If you want more control over after-the-fact rules, try the
Mail Act-On
plug-in.)
Create a Rule
To create a basic rule, follow these steps:
1. Go to Mail > Preferences > Rules and click Add Rule.
A dialog appears showing the condition(s) the rule checks for and the action(s)
Mail takes if the conditions match.
2. Enter a name for the rule in the Description field.
3. Set a condition to check for. Start by choosing something from the left-hand pop-
up menu in this area; depending on what you choose, you may now see a second
pop-up menu, a text field, or both. Here are some examples of a completed con-
dition:
[From] [Contains] apple.com
[Subject] [Begins with] Take Control
