Tips for setting up filters

 These are some helpful tips for setting up and ordering the filters in a Yahoo! Mail account.

Filters can be very helpful in organizing your email, but if you don't set them up correctly they can also cause you problems.

Here are a few tips for setting up filters:

• Sorting by who sent email: If you want to sort mail according to who sent it to you, enter the sender's email address in the "Sender" field.
  - This is the best way to set up this kind of filter.
  - Entering words the sender sometimes writes in their emails in the "Email Body" field won't work as well because other people might use these words too.
• Sorting by the email body: If you want to sort mail according to what is inside the message (all messages having to do with turkey stuffing; for instance, going into a special "Thanksgiving" folder), then enter the words that interest you ("turkey stuffing," for example) in the "Email Body: contains" field.
• Order your filters with "narrowest" filters at the top: For best results, put your "narrowest" filters at the top and your "broadest" filters at the bottom.
  - "Narrowest" means your most selective filter.
  - "Broadest" means the filter that could apply to most messages.
  - When a message matches a filter, it goes where that filter tells it to go.
• Repeating a word in all four fields may not be useful: Entering the same word in all four fields (Tugboat Tugboat Tugboat Tugboat) requires the word to appear in all four fields ("From" Tugboat, "To"/"Cc" Tugboat, "Subject" Tugboat, "Body" Tugboat) for the filter to work.
• Filter order: Take a little time also to consider the order of your filters.
  - Filter 1 will be the first filter applied to an incoming email.
  - Filter 2 will be next, and so on until a match is made or all filters are passed.
  - If no filters match an incoming email, it will be delivered to your Inbox.

Example showing why filter order matters:

• Let's say your sister has an email account with Yahoo!.
• Your first filter is an "@yahoo" filter (any address that contains "@yahoo").
• Your second filter is a Family filter (any address that contains your last name).
• Then the @yahoo filter will send her emails into the folder you specified for the @yahoo filter instead of into the folder you specified for the Family filter every time because the @yahoo filter comes first. This could be frustrating when you go looking for her emails in your Family folder!

How to change the filter order or delete a filter:

• To change the order of your filters: Click a filter name to highlight it, then click the Up or Down buttons to the right to push the filter up the list or to drop it down.
• To edit or delete a filter: Click on its name to highlight it, then click either the Trash can or the Remove Filter button.

• For more information, see our help article about how to set up filters.