Ann,

Can you use mail “rules” to process your emails so they’ll go into the mailbox 
you create?  Once set up it has always ask me if I want to apply the rules now 
to existing emails…yes, and all those meeting the criteria of the rule are put 
into the appropriate mailbox and any future emails will automatically go into 
the same folder.

John


How to Set Up Apple Mail Rules


Finished Bank Statement Rule.  Screen shot courtesy of Coyote Moon, Inc.
Updated September 16, 2015.

It's easy to create Apple Mail 
<safari-reader://macs.about.com/od/AppleMail/tp/Apple-Mail-Tips-And-Tricks.htm> 
rules that tell the application how to process incoming pieces of mail.

Rules have two components: the condition and the action. Conditions are 
guidelines for selecting the type of message an action will affect. You could 
have a Mail rule whose condition looks for any mail from your friend Sean, and 
whose action is to highlight the message, so you can more easily see it in your 
inbox. 
<safari-reader://macs.about.com/od/appleconsumersoftware/qt/Organize-Your-Apple-Mail-With-Mailboxes.htm>
Mail rules can do much more than simply find and highlight messages. They can 
organize your mail 
<safari-reader://macs.about.com/od/appleconsumersoftware/qt/Take-Control-Of-Your-Email-In-Mail.htm>;
 for example, they can recognize banking-related messages and move them to your 
bank email folder. They can grab spam 
<http://email.about.com/od/macspamfightingtools/tp/Top-Mac-Spam-Filters.htm> 
from recurring senders and move it automatically to a Junk folder 
<safari-reader://macs.about.com/od/AppleMail/qt/Filter-Spam-With-Apple-Mail.htm>
 or the Trash. They can also take a message and forward it to a different email 
address.

There are currently 12 built-in actions available. If you know how to create 
AppleScripts, Mail can also run AppleScripts to perform additional actions, 
such as launch specific applications.

In addition to creating simple rules, you can create compound rules that look 
for multiple conditions before performing one or more actions. Mail's support 
for compound rules allows you to create very sophisticated rules.

In this Quick Tip, we'll create a compound rule that will recognize mail from 
your credit card company and notify you that your monthly statement is ready by 
highlighting the message in your inbox.

The message we're interested in is sent from the alert service at Example Bank, 
and has a 'From' address that ends in alert.examplebank.com.

Because I receive various types of alerts from Example Bank, I'll need to 
create a rule that filters messages based on the 'From' field as well as the 
'Subject' field. Using these two fields, I can differentiate all of the types 
of alerts I receive.

Launch Apple Mail

Launch Mail by clicking the Mail icon in the Dock 
<safari-reader://macs.about.com/od/glossary/g/dock.htm>, or by double-clicking 
the Mail application located at: /Applications/Mail/.
If you have a statement alert from your credit card company, select it so the 
message is open in Mail. If a message is selected when you add a new rule, Mail 
assumes that the message's 'From,' 'To,' and 'Subject' fields will probably be 
used in the rule, and automatically fills the information in for you. Having 
the message open also lets you see any specific text you may need for the rule.
Add a Rule

Select 'Preferences' from the Mail menu.
Click the 'Rules' button in the Preferences window that opens.
Click the ‘Add Rule’ button.
Fill in the 'Description' field. For this example, I will use ‘Example Bank CC 
Statement’ as the description.
Add the First Condition

Use the dropdown menu to set the ‘If’ statement to ‘All.' The 'If' statement 
allows you to choose between two forms, 'If any' and 'If all.' The 'If' 
statement is helpful when you have multiple conditions to test for, as in this 
example, where we want to test both the 'From' and 'Subject' fields. If you 
will only be testing for one condition, such as the 'From' field, the 'If' 
statement doesn't matter, so you can leave it in its default state.
In the 'Conditions' section, just below the 'If' statement, select 'From' from 
the left-hand dropdown menu.
In the 'Conditions' section, just below the 'If' statement, select 'Contains' 
from the right-hand dropdown menu.
If you had a message from the credit card company open when you started 
creating this rule, the 'Contains' field will be automatically filled in with 
the appropriate 'From' email address. Otherwise, you will need to enter this 
information manually. For this example, we will enter alert.examplebank.com in 
the 'Contains' field.
Add the Second Condition

Click the plus (+) button to the far right of the existing condition.
A second condition will be created.
In the second conditions section, select 'Subject' from the left-hand dropdown 
menu.
In the second conditions section, select 'Contains' from the right-hand 
dropdown menu.
If you had a message from the credit card company open when you started 
creating this rule, the 'Contains' field will be automatically filled in with 
the appropriate 'Subject' line. Otherwise, you will need to enter this 
information manually. For this example, we will enter Example Bank Statement in 
the 'Contains' field.
Add the Action to be Performed

In the 'Actions' section, select 'Set Color' from the left-hand dropdown menu.
In the 'Actions' section, select 'Text' from the middle dropdown menu.
In the 'Actions' section, select 'Red' from the right-hand dropdown menu.
Click the ‘OK’ button to save your new rule.
Your new rule will be used for all subsequent messages you receive. If you 
would like the new rule to process the current contents of your inbox, select 
all of the messages in your inbox, then select 'Messages, Apply Rules' from the 
Mail menu.

Apple Mail rules are very versatile. You can create complex rules with multiple 
conditions and multiple actions. You can also create multiple rules that work 
together to process messages. Once you try Mail rules, you'll wonder how you 
ever managed without them.








> On Apr 21, 2016, at 9:41 PM, Anne Cartwright <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I have some files on my computer that are in Mail but not in a mailbox where 
> I can find them.
> 
> I would like to get them back into Mail proper in an appropriate mailbox.
> 
> When I use spotlight to find one it shows up as Mail>34346.emix. Ho do I find 
> them and can I safely move them back into Mail proper?
> 
> Anne Cartwright
> _______________________________________________
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