5. Filter Rules
You may create, delete and modify filter rules by clicking on the funnel-shaped Filter Rules icon from the menu icons at the top of the EduMail Advanced Mail application
Contents
Blacklist
The blacklist is a list of email addresses known to send email that you wish to block from your INBOX. To add, remove or modify addresses in the blacklist, click on the word Blacklist in the Edit Rules area.
Action for blacklisted addresses:
This action defines what to do when a message from a blacklisted sender arrives in your INBOX. Blocked messages can either be deleted or moved to a different folder. Select Delete message completely if you want the messages discarded before ever being stored in your Inbox. Select Move message to folder and then select the desired folder.
Enter each address on a new line:
Type the email addresses you wish to block in the space provided. Each address should be entered on a separate line. If you wish to modify or remove an address, you may do that as well.
Whitelist
The whitelist is a list of email addresses that should be considered 'safe' and will always be delivered, regardless of whether other message rules you have created would have blocked them.
Note: Only messages being delivered by EduTech can be affected by your EduMail Advanced filter rules. If EduTech's central mail system has prevented a message from being delivered because it failed our system spam checks, it will not be delivered, regardless of whether you have set EduMail Advanced to whitelist that message.
Type the email addresses you wish to whitelist in the space provided. Each address should be entered on a separate line. If you wish to modify or remove an address, you may do that as well.
Creating, Modifying and Arranging and Removing Rules
Creating new rules
You can create new rules by clicking on the New Rule button beneath the rule list.
A rule is the basic building block of your mail filters, it consists of one or more conditions and one or more actions. When a message is sent to you, it is processed through the conditions of your filter rules, if the conditions that you specify are met, the actions that you specify will be performed on that message. Filters can be very useful for automatically deleting unwanted mail, or making your mail account more manageable by storing related messages into different folders.
Rule Name
Type a descriptive name for this new rule so that you can identify it in your filter listing.
For an incoming message that matches:
You may define multiple conditions within a single rule. You may group them together logically selecting All of the following (and) or Any of the following (or). You may not create complex filters containing both types of conditions.
There are 3 components to each condition in a rule.
- The field to examine, i.e. From, To, Subject, etc….
- The type of comparison to perform, i.e. Contains, Is Less Than, etc…
- The value to which the field should be compared.
There are a few different types of comparisons that can be performed. All potential matching options listed below may not appear for a given field.
- Contains
Will be considered to be true if the specified string is found anywhere on the line. Example: user@example would match joe_user@example.com - Doesn't Contain
- Will be considered to be true if the specified string is NOT found anywhere on the line. Example: user@example would not match joe_user@example.com
- Is
- Will be considered to be true if the specified string matches the line exactly. Example: user@example.com is user@example.com
- Isn't
Will be considered to be true if the specified string does NOT match the line exactly. Example: user@example is not user@example.com - Begins with
Will be considered to be true if the specified string matches the beginning of the line. Example: user@example will match user@example.com - Doesn't begin with Will be considered to be true if the specified string does NOT match the beginning of the line. Example: user@example.com will not match user@example
- Ends with
Will be considered to be true if the specified string matches the end of the line. Example: example.com will match user@example.com - Doesn't end with
Will be considered to be true if the specified string does NOT match the end of the line. Example: horde.org will not match user@example.com - Exists
Will be considered to be true if the specified header exists in the message, regardless of what its value is. - Doesn't Exist
Will be considered to be true if the specified header does NOT exist in the message. - Reg expression
Regular expressions are complex pattern matches using programming rules to compare message headers. Unfortunately, regular expressions these are far to complicated to describe in these help documents.
Example: "Received from [*\.*\.*\.*] by (hosta|hostb).example.com*" would match "Received from [172.16.100.1] by hosta.example.com on Tuesday" - Matches
Matches is similar to contains, with the exception that you may use * and ? as wildcards. An * will match any number of characters, and a ? will match exactly one character. Example: "*user?@example.com" will match both "user1@example.com" and "otheruser2@example.com" - Doesn't match
Doesn't match is the same as matches except that it will evaluate to false if the specified value matches the string in the message header. - Greater than
This is a relational test which will compare the value you specify and the value in the message header numerically. - Less than
This is a relational test which will compare the value you specify and the value in the message header numerically.
Do this:
These are the possible actions that will be taken if an incoming message matches the specified conditions.
- Deliver this message into my Inbox
Select this option and the message will be saved in your Inbox. This is the default option. - Deliver to folder
Select this option and the message will be delivered to the specified folder. - Delete message completely
Select this option and the message will be silently deleted. Neither you nor the sender will receive notification that this has happened. - Deliver to my INBOX and copy to
Select this option and the message will be sent to the email address or folder that you specify. A copy of the message will also remain in your INBOX.
Mark message as:
You may specify marking a message with one or more IMAP flags as one of the actions in a rule. The possible values are Seen, Flagged For Followup, Answered, and Deleted.
Stop checking if this rule matches?
If this option is checked, and a message matches this rule, the remaining filters will not be processed.
Moving/Rearranging rules
You may change the rule order by clicking on the up and down arrows or entering new rule positions in the Move column
Please note, that the rules are executed in the order displayed on the Existing Rules screen. For example, if an email is deleted by the blacklist, the following rules will not have any influence on this email. It is in your best interests to let Whitelist be the first rule in the list. Since you placed senders in the Whitelist to ensure they are not affected by other rules, the Whitelist should be the first rule in the list.
Enabling/Disabling rules
Rules may be enabled or disabled by clicking on the green checkmark or the red "X" in the Enabled column. If a rule currently has a checkmark in the Enabled column, it is enabled and will be executed, if that column contains an "X" the rule will be skipped.
Editing rules
You may change an existing rule by clicking on the icon which looks like a piece of paper with a pencil on it in the Edit column. You may also click on the rule name. Follow the instructions in Creating a New Rule for more information on message rules.
Deleting Rules
You may delete a message rule by clicking the trashcan icon next to the rule name
Additional Settings
Display detailed notification when each filter is applied?
If checked, every message filtered will result in a separate notification message output to the screen immediately after the message is processed. If unchecked, only a summary of filter actions will be output to the screen.
Filter Options
You can either apply filter to all messages, apply filter ONLY to messages that are marked unseen, or apply filter ONLY to messages that have been marked seen.
Last updated on March 17, 2009