What if your email program could automatically sort your mail for you—trashing junk mail, put family mail in a special place and organize your business correspondence so that it is right at your fingertips? If you have trouble keeping up with your email, then read on ...

What is an Email Filter?
Most email software can be set up using filters so that mail is sorted and organized even before you read it. Filters are commands that tell your email program how to deal with incoming mail. Each filter consists of two items: (1) a string of text or numbers and (2) instructions on what to do with messages that contain the string. Filters primarily work on message headers—the section of each email that contains information about the sender, the recipient, the date of the message and the subject.

Palma de Mallorca luxury hotelsEach time you receive a new email message, your software will compare the message headers to the filters you've set up. When a message contains the text or numbers you've selected to filter, your software will follow the instructions for that filter. Filters can be used to direct messages into designated mailboxes, raise the priority of some messages so you will notice them or put them directly into the trash. Some email software (such as Eudora) even have the capability to read the subject line of certain messages to you, based on matching who the message is from.

Mail Folders Made Easy
Setting up new mail folders is relatively simple. Here are basic instructions for several popular mail reading programs:

dot Netscape Messenger (Win and Mac):

1. From the Communicator menu (on the Mac, this is the small lighthouse icon in the menu bar), select "Message Center."
2. In the Message Center window, single-click the "Local Mail" folder to highlight it. If you'd like to create the new folder within an existing folder, highlight that folder instead.
3. Click the "New Folder" button in the toolbar.
4. Type a name for your new folder and click "OK."
5. Close the Message Center window.

dot Outlook Express (Win):

1. Go to the "File" menu and select the "Folder" submenu.
2. In the pop-up menu, select "New Folder."
3. Single-click the Outlook Express icon in the folder window to highlight it. If you'd like to create the new folder within an existing folder, highlight that folder instead.
4. Type a name for your new folder and click "OK."

dot Outlook Express (Mac):

1. Go to the "File" menu and select the "New" submenu.
2. In the pop-up menu, select "Folder."
3. Type a name for the new folder and hit Return.

dot Eudora:

1. From the "Tools" menu, choose "Mailboxes."
2. Right-click on the folder. A drop-down menu is displayed.
3. From the drop-down menu, choose "New." A dialog is displayed requesting the name of the new mailbox or folder.
4. Type in the new name and click "OK." The new mailbox or folder is displayed in the lists, and is added to the Mailbox and Transfer menus.

Filtering Effectively!
Bled hotels It's important to take time to decide what you want to filter where. What is important and what is clutter? Here are a few filtering methods:

dot By Email Address
Suppose you are exchanging a series of messages with your SBDC consultant. Her email address is brown_s@sbdc.edu. To set it such that all of her messages are sorted into a folder named "Sue Brown," begin by creating a new folder with that name. (See instructions above for how to create new folders.) Next, set the parameters so that incoming messages from "brown_s@sbdc.edu" are transferred to the "Sue Brown" folder. (Similarly, you can set your messages to her to be stored in the same folder.)

dot By Subject
Maybe you are on a marketing mailing list and you decide that you want all of the list messages to go into a folder named "Marketing." First, create a folder with that name. (See instructions above.) Because that mailing list is set to include the phrase "Mktng List" in the subject line of each message, you can set the parameters so that incoming messages with that phrase in the subject line are filtered to that folder.

dot By a Keyword Anywhere
Suppose you have sent out messages to a variety of sources, searching for an out-of-print book. To filter all of the responses into a folder, create the folder and specify that if the title of the book is found anywhere in the message (or in the header or body), that it is filtered into the folder.

How to Set Up Filters
The way that you set up email filters will vary and is dependent on at least two things:
      (1) your email software and (2) your operating system

Here are very generic instructions for setting up email filters:

1. Open your email program
2. Find the "Filters" section (usually under "Edit," "Options" or "Tools" on the menu bar.
3. Click on "New" and type the name of the new filter. Select a name that is easy to remember.
4. Enter the filter conditions or "rules." Conditions are the requirements that a message must meet (such as the subject line includes the phrase "Marketing List") in order for the action (such as placing that message into the "Marketing List" folder) to occur. You can select multiple conditions for the same filter (such as mail from "Bob Brown"
   with "Staff Meeting" in the header).
5. Select the action to want the program to perform with the filtered messages.
6. Click "OK" to save the filter. You may continue to add more filters if needed.

To find step-by-step instructions for setting up filters for your specific software, check your manual or use "Help" in your software. Here are some links to online sources that provide specifics for several email programs. Some include helpful screenshots:

Eudora's online tutorial (Win)
Eudora's online tutorial (Mac)
Eudora Light 3.1 (Mac)
Eudora Light 3.0.1 (Win)
Eurora Pro 4.0
Eudora 3.x or 4.x
Netscape Messenger (Win and Mac)
Netscape Messenger 4.5
Outlook Express
Outlook Express (Mac)
Outlook Express 5
Outlook 97

A Word About Eudora
Eudora is really the leader of the pack when it comes to email software products. It offers excellent filtering options, including the ability to flag, tag, label, change the color of or otherwise mark or sort mail so you can find important ones at a glance, even if you have hundreds of messages in your in box. You can even apply voices to certain messages so that subject lines are read to you when they arrive in your mailbox.

Using Eudora can also help avoid some of the virus attacks that are more problematic with Outlook.

Download and Try Eudora
Eudora offers versions for both PCs and Macs. These are free, full-featured versions. Initially, what you download is termed "Sponsored Mode" because it is free, but you will see ad banners. If you like the software and wish to upgrade to "Paid Mode," you may do that for $39.95 and the banners will be eliminated.

click here to download Eudora for Windows
or here to download Eudora for Macintosh
click to download and try Eudora - free!