Create Email Filters in Mac OS X Mail

This article will go over creating email filters for filtering and organizing mail with OS X's Mail program.  

These filters are local to your Mac only and will not sync with the mail server.  All filters that are on the mail server take precedence over any local filters created in this article.

1. Open Mail.

2. Go to the Preferences menu.  The Preferences panel will appear.  

3. Click Rules. 

4. Click the Add Rule button to add a new filter.
5. A dialog box will appear where you can enter in the description of the filter and further configure it.
6. In the drop down, select if the action should match ANY of the rules or ALL of the filters.  In most cases you will want to choose ANY.

7. In the following drop down box, select the filter type.  For example if you want the filter to just apply to a specific account (if you have more than one account setup in Mail), select Account and then the account.  Then click the + sign and add a second filter where the subject contains the word Viagra.  In this case, you will have wanted to select ALL as the filter as both filters need to match in order for it to be effective.  Another example is if you only have one account or want to apply the filter to all accounts within Mail.  In this case, select ANY, select the filter (again we'll use the same filter for simplicity purposes) as Subject contains Viagra.

8. Next you will select the action to perform.  In most cases you will want to delete the message or move it to a Junk Mail folder.  It is usually better to move it to the Junk Email filter so as to confirm your filter is correct and not catching legitimate email.  For example if you setup a filter where the Subject contains 'cialis', then all subjects with the word 'specialist' in them would be acted upon as you can see: specialist.

9. The final rule will look similar to this for applying to a specific account:

For all accounts, the rule will look similar to the following:

10. Click OK when you are satisfied with the filter.  You will receive a warning asking if you wish to apply to all emails in the inbox for the account.  Choose accordingly.

11. At any time you can go back to the Rules panel and change the rule or delete the rule as you see fit.