Sorting Messages Into Folders
| Creating Filters | Changing Filter Order | Filtering and Mobile Alerts | Editing and Deleting Filters | Additional Tips |
Creating Filters
If you want messages automatically sorted into different folders as they arrive in your account, use AT&T Mail’s filtering feature. Filters automatically sort your incoming messages according to rules that you set up. For example, you can create a filter so messages from your family members are automatically delivered to a personal folder called Family. With filters, you don’t need to read through each message to decide where it goes and then move it there yourself.
Tip: You can also use AddressGuard to sort incoming mail into folders based on disposable addresses. Learn more about this option in the Using Disposable Addresses tutorial.
Each filter is a rule with one or more conditions and a destination (usually a folder) for the message if it meets the condition or conditions. A condition defines:
- What part of the message the filter should scan—Your choice here is one of the following:
- From header—Who sent the message.
- To/CC header—Who the message is addressed to.
- Subject—The subject line of the message is.
- Body—The text of the message.
- What text to look for (the target text)—The text string that identifies the message as one you want automatically moved to a certain folder. You can use the * (asterisk) as a wildcard in the beginning, the middle, or the end of the text to designate one or more characters.
- How to match the target text (the matching criteria)—You can specify whether or not the match should be case-sensitive and where the target string should appear in text that you’re trying to match. The choices here are:
- Contains—The target text can appear anywhere in the text that you’re matching. For example, the target string "Chris" would match all the following text passages: "School project on Christopher Columbus," "I forgot to call Chris," "chris9441@yahoo.com."
- Does not contain—The target text must not appear anywhere in the text that you’re matching. (This is a negative condition.) For example, the target string "Chris" would match any text passage that does not contain "Chris."
- Begins with—The target text must appear at the beginning of the text that you’re matching. For example, the target string "Chris" would match "chris9441@yahoo.com," but not "School project on Christopher Columbus" or "I forgot to call Chris."
- Ends with—The target text must appear at the end of the text that you’re matching. For example, the target string "Chris" would match "I forgot to call Chris," but not "chris9441@yahoo.com" or "School project on Christopher Columbus."
If the filter’s rule includes more than one condition, all conditions must be true for the rule to apply. Consider, for example, a filter with the following two conditions:
From ends with "@mycompany.com"
Subject contains "company picnic"
A message must be both from someone with an email address ending in @mycompany.com and must have the text company picnic in its subject to match the filter. A message that satisfies just one condition does not match the rule and is not filtered.
(More Details)
Here’s How
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Go to your AT&T Mail page and select Mail Options from the Options menu.
The General options page appears.
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On the left side of the mail options page, select the Filters option.
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On the Filters page, click the Create or edit filters link.
The AT&T Mail Filters page opens in a separate window.
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Click the Add button.
The Add Message Filter page appears. This is where you define the rule and the destination for the new filter.
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Type a unique name for the new filter in the Filter Name box, such as "From Mom" or "Company Picnic."
If you don’t type a name, AT&T Mail automatically creates a name for the filter when it adds it to your filter list.
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Define the condition or conditions for the filter’s rule. For each condition, you must specify the following:
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The matching criterion, such as "contains" or "ends with."
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The target text, for example, "@rocketmail.com", "Love", "InfoBeat".
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The case-sensitivity of the match. Check the box next to match case to indicate a case-sensitive match; otherwise the match is not case sensitive.
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From the Move the message to pull-down list, choose the destination folder to which you want the message delivered.
If you want the filter to direct messages to a new folder, select [New Folder] from the pull-down menu. When AT&T Mail adds the new filter (that is, after you click the Add Filter button), it prompts you for a name and creates the new folder.
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If you’ve configured your mobile device for alerts and would like to forward messages to your mobile device when this filter is activated, check the box next to Send an alert to my Mobile Device.
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Click the Add Filter button to save the filter.
The new filter appears in the list of filters on your Filters page and the total number of filters increases by one.
What’s Next
You can create up to 50 filters. If you use more than one filter, you may need to specify the order in which AT&T Mail tries to apply your filters.
Note: There is currently no option in AT&T Mail to filter messages once they’re already in your Inbox.
Words to Know
- Case-sensitive: lower and uppercase letters are not treated the same; for example, a is not the same as A.
- Condition: the part of a filter that defines what constitutes a matching message.
- Disposable email address: a customized email address that you create using AddressGuard to protect your regular AT&T Mail address.
- Filter: a rule that AT&T Mail uses to direct an incoming message to a particular folder.
- Folder: a container that holds individual elements specific to the context; for example, email messages in AT&T Mail or bookmarks in the Bookmarks Sidebar module.
- Mobile device: a wireless communication device for exchanging voice, text, and/or graphic information; includes pagers, mobile phones, web phones, pagers, two-way pagers, PDAs, and Internet appliances.