They are all pretty self-explanatory.
Whichever one you select will then be the part of all incoming
messages that the filter will look in. The next step is to tell the filter how
and what to look for in the field we just selected.
6. There are a number of actions that the filter can perform during
its search:
contains: the specified text string must appear somewhere
in the selected field for the filter to activate.
doesn't contain:
the specified text string must appear
in the selected field for the filter to activate.
is: the specified
text string must be the ONLY thing to appear in
the selected field. For example, if "savetrees.com" is the text
string, and the Sender field contains spammer@savetrees.com,
then a filter with this option set would NOT filter this message.
isn't: the
opposite
of the above condition. If the selected field contains anything
but the selected text string, it will be filtered.
begins with: the
selected text string must be the first
thing to appear in the specified field.
ends with: the
selected text string must be the last thing
to appear in the specified field.
Since we want to look for something
in particular that will most likely also have other things in
the field as well, we should choose CONTAINS as the specified condition. This way,
if "savetrees.com" appears anywhere in the sender field, regardless of
what else may appear in there, the filter will activate.
7. Okay, now we need to specify a text string that will be the
search condition for the filter. This will be, of course, savetrees.com.
Enter that in the window immediately to the right of
the CONTAINS window.
8. We've now told the filter everything it
needs to know as far as where to look, how to look, and what to
look for. So, now we need to tell it what to do if it finds a match.
There are a number of actions that you can have Messenger do to
any message that a filter catches. Let's go over what those options are:
Move to folder:
this option will make the filter move any messages that it matches into the folder that
you specify.
Change priority:
this option will change the stamp of the priority on the filtered
messages. For example, if an important message from your boss
comes in with no priority, and you have a filter set up to filter messages from your boss'
address, you can use this option to have those messages stamped with a high
priority label in your inbox so that they will catch your attention.
Delete: this option will simply delete any messages that
this filter catches.
Mark Read: this one will mark any filtered messages as
already read.
In the case of the first two options, a window
will appear immediately to the right of the action window (in the
picture above, the window with the trash can in it is the one
that we are referring to that you will have to specify something further in. In
the case of Move to folder, you will get a window that will let you choose
which mailbox the filtered messages are to be transferred to.
In the case of the Change Priority, the window will allow you to choose which
priority label to change the message to.
Since this filter deals with spam, you will probably
want the filter to either delete the message right away or
transfer it to the trash folder. The only reason that you may want
to have the mail transferred to trash first is in case you wish
to review it to make sure that no legitimate mail was erroneously caught
by the filter. However, this particular filter that we are setting up
is rather specific, and no one gets legitimate mail from savetrees.com, so
we think that it is safe to just set this action to delete.
If you set up some more generic
filters (say, one that just searches the body of the message for a spammish phrase like "make more money"), you may want to have that
filter transfer to trash instead of delete so you can check
those messages first.
The filter is pretty much done at this point.
Should you eventually set up a large number of filters, you may want
to type a description in the window provided so you can keep track of which filters do what. The last
option that you can select is whether this particular filter is to be On
or Off as set by the little check boxes at the bottom of the window. So,
click the On checkbox and click OK at the bottom of the window.
Now, let's go back to the main filter window for a little lesson in how
to manage your filters as a group:
Say, after using the spam filter for a while
and deciding that you like what it does, that you decide to make filters
to catch mail from your boss and your wife. You now have three filters and will want to maybe
tweak how they work in relation to each other. So, here are your options
as far as managing them:
- One thing to consider is the order in which
the filters are applied. You want to have your most important
filters set first and the least important set last. For example, you
would want a filter set to catch mail from your boss near the top of
the chain and spam filters at the bottom. Why? Well, this way the important filters get first crack at the
incoming mail, and you therefore have better odds of the right filter
catching the right messages. You wouldn't want a spam filter to match
one of your boss' messages and delete it. So, keep the spam filters at
the end of the list. In the above example, the spam filter is set first.
To move it down the list, you would simply click on the down arrow to
the right and click it twice until the spam filter was listed last.
- The next thing to worry about is what those
little check marks mean. Basically, a check mark denotes a filter
that is turned on and a little gray circle means that the filter is turned off and will not be applied
to any incoming mail until it is turned on.
- The last option to check here is the Log
Filter Use box. If you check this, you will be able to check all logs
of all actions that the filters took during the last mail download.
Useful if you wish to see if the filters are working properly at
a glance.
RESIDENTIAL
