Filter Examples

With Eudora

With filters you can tell Eudora to perform actions automatically whenever you receive or send messages. Actions include:

Automatically open a message or play a sound
Set a message's priority (from Highest to Lowest)
Apply a color label (like Essential or Reference)
Forward the message to another address
Copy or transfer the message to one of your mailboxes

The generic instructions for creating filters can be found on the Organizing your E-mail page. (Clicking this link will open that page in a new window, so you can refer to it while you read this.)

Here are examples of filters you might want to use:

Filtering Out Spam & Viruses
Save a copy of all outgoing messages on the server (IMAP Users Only)
Make a set of messages look different from the rest
Put all messages from a particular source into a separate mailbox

If you are using IMAP, remember that filters live on your computer, not on the server, so you should keep your filters the same on all the computers where you use Eudora. If you set a filter that affects messages stored locally, you won't be able to see those effects when you check your e-mail from another computer.

A reasonably complete description of filtering options can be found on our Filter Glossary page. (A more thorough - and dense - explanation can be found in Qualcomm's manual).

Filtering Out Spam & Viruses

In February 2003 CIT introduced PureMessage, which quarantines viruses and identifies probable spam messages. Eudora's filters can help you separate these problem messages so you can focus on the e-mail you want. If you are not set up to use this service, please see the PureMessage page for more information.

First, create two new mailboxes, following the instructions on the Organizing page. Here we will call them "HadVirus" and "ProbableSpam" but you can call them anything you want.

Then, create two filters:

The first filter will check for messages generated by PureMessage to alert you that it has blocked an incoming virus. (A reason to look at these messages is to see if they were sent by someone you know, so you can alert that person.) If you just want these messages deleted, transfer them into the Trash instead. Remember, the infected file was blocked by PureMessage, so you can not and will not infect your computer by reading these messages.

Notice the second action: "Skip Rest." When Eudora sees this, it knows to stop checking this message against the remaining filters. If we didn't use "Skip Rest," Eudora would check the rest of the filters and take whatever actions applied which (1) wastes time and (2) might end up putting this virus message somewhere else (for example, if it came from "netadmin-l" the fifth filter listed here would move this message OUT of the "HadVirus" mailbox and put it in the "NetAdmin" mailbox, which is not what we want!

The second filter will check for messages that PureMessage has marked as probably being spam. By setting them aside you can review them occasionally to see if a valid message has been included, and delete them all at once. (If you filter them directly to the trash, you may unintentionally delete a valid message.)

You may find that some valid messages are being marked as probable spam, especially from some mailing lists. To prevent these from being transferred into your "ProbableSpam" mailbox, set up another filter BEFORE the spam filter, using the sender's address or other identifier AND (very important) end your filter with "Skip Rest."

Save Outgoing Messages on the Server (IMAP Only)

By default, Eudora will save a copy of your outgoing messages in your local Out mailbox. If you want to have access to your outgoing messages from any computer (for example, to find out exactly when you sent a message, or review what exactly you said), you can create a filter like this one which will put your outgoing messages in a folder on the server instead.

First, if you don't already have a "Sent" mailbox on the server, create one, following the instructions on the Organizing page. (If you have ever started up WebMail, it will have created a "Sent" mailbox.) You can, of course, call this mailbox anything you want.

Then create a filter that will look at all outgoing messages (not incoming) and transfer all of them to the server.

This filter finds all outgoing messages where the "From" field exists, which it always will. If you want to keep a copy of outgoing messages on the server AND locally, use "Copy To" for the action instead of "Transfer To."

Make Some Messages Stand Out

You can use color and a text label to make messages stand out. (To customize the text and color of your labels, on a Macintosh go to Special / Settings / Eudora Labels; in Windows go to Tools / Options / Labels.)

This example demonstrates Eudora's ability to filter on two conditions at once. It checks to see if the message came from an address at either Cornell University or Ithaca College.

Notice that this filter, unlike all the other examples, does NOT end with "Skip Rest." You may also want to have this message sorted into a mailbox (see the next example). Once Eudora sees "Skip Rest" it stops checking this message against the rest of the filters. By not using "Skip Rest" you allow Eudora to apply the label and then sort the message (if it finds another filter that applies).

Sort Messages into Separate Mailboxes

You can sort messages from particular addresses (or with a particular subject) into various mailboxes, or messages sent to a list address, keeping your messages organized. In this example we've filtered on messages sent to a particular mailing list.

Last modified: May 24, 2007