Despite advancements in social networks and instant messaging services, many still rely on good ‘ole fashioned email. On the Mac, people typically use Apple’s Mail app because of its simplicity and power. Of course it may have something to do with the fact that it's pre-installed.
Unfortunately, once you start getting emails from all your friends, your work, Facebook, that newsletter about puppies wearing top hats, and your family your in-box can get a little daunting. Fortunately, with rules you can automatically manage all your messages and delete those weird forwards from your aunt about Bill Gates giving us all money to send an email around the world.
To create a new Mail rule, open Mail and navigate to Mail > Preferences in the Menu Bar (or press Command + ,). Once there, click the Rules tab. In this section, you are able to manage your rules by adding, editing, duplicating, or removing them.
Click Add Rule. In the resulting dialog, type in a description. We’ll call it "Flag and Highlight." In this case, we want to match a particular email address, then flag and highlight the message. To do this, ensure that "all" is selected for match conditions, then choose "From" and "Is equal" to in the drop-down conditions area. Type in the email address you’d like to match in the blank text field.
In the "Perform the following actions" area, select "Mark as Flagged," then add a new action to "Set Color" "of background" to a color that you choose. When you have finished, click OK.
Now, whenever you receive an email matching the rule’s conditions, the action will be executed and the message will be flagged and color changed in your inbox.
Of course rules can be far more complicated than this. For instance, you can have a rule automatically reply to a message, play a sound, or even execute an AppleScript. Experiment with Rules and soon you'll be managing your email messages like nobodies business.
Do you have a Mail Rule that you use often? Let us know about it in the comments below.
Follow this article’s author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.
LukeEnround
July 25, 2011 at 5:21pm
Mail's rules seem to lack the basic ability to nest ANDs & ORs. It seems I've seen those options in some Mac app - iTunes? Am I just missing something?
Tonymanx
July 11, 2011 at 12:51pm
I couldn't survive without the many rules I have set up in Mail. It is very satisfying when I see in the mail activity box (lower left) 80 emails coming in but only 5 go to my inbox. All the others go to junk, trash, and other folders. One thing I have not set up yet that I would like is a rule that uses the "bounce" feature (in the Message pull down menu). Bouncing an annoying email is very gratifying but it is not an option in the rules. Maybe I can try it with applescript. But Rules do rule -- they are great!
