How Can You Use Mailtools Email Filters?

Everyone, including you, can benefit from using Mailtools email filters. But how you can use them depends on how you read your email.

Regardless of how you read your email,

if you're fed up with spam, try the Mailtools antispam filter, Canned Spam Filters.

 

Regardless of how you read your email,

when you're going on vacation and want to send automatic responses to the email messages that you receive while you're gone, use Mailtools. It's the right way to do it. And it'll keep you from embarrassing yourself by sending sixteen automatic replies to the same person or by sending auto replies to email discussion groups. You might also want to throw in a few Mailtools customizable filters that will delete messages from email discussion groups while you're away; this could save your email account from going over your quota. If you receive a lot of email that you can't turn off, send an email message to systems@uic.edu asking that the email Grim Reaper be turned off while you're gone. Be sure to include your netid, email server, the day you're going, and the day you're coming back.

 

If you use Eudora (or Outlook or Netscape) with IMAP to manage your email,

you've got the best of both worlds. Use Mailtools filters for email forwarding and deletion, vacation replies, and to sort out spam and attachments that you don't want to download automatically. Use Eudora filters for everything else, including moving incoming and outgoing messages to specific mailboxes, mainly because they're easier to set up. Ditto if you use IMAP with other personal computer email programs such as Outlook and Netscape.

 

If you use Eudora (or Outlook or Netscape) with POP to manage your mail,

then, except for email forwarding or deleting, vacation notification, and the antispam and attachment filters, you're pretty much stuck with using only Eudora filters. Not that Eudora filters are bad, but you will always have to download all of your new incoming email, even mail that has attachments and mail that the antispam filter has identified as spam. Perhaps it's time to switch to IMAP?

 

If you always use WebMail or pine,

then use Mailtools for all your filters. Neither WebMail nor pine have provisions to make their own filters.