Email List FAQ

How to manage e-mail FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file (contributed by Mae Tang from version 1.0 originally compiled 08/08/08))

What are filters?
Filters are a way of sorting your e-mail. Many e-mail programs will have filters, or some version of them. What they enable you to do is to automatically sort incoming e-mail by different criteria, into different mailboxes. For instance, I use filters so that my general inbox does not get cluttered up with e-mails from many different mailing lists. I have the filters automatically put incoming e-mail from different lists into different mailboxes, so that I can read through them at my leisure.

How do I use filters?
If you want to use filters yourself, it may be useful to have a look at the Help files for your e-mail program, to see if they tell you how to set up filters. Usually, there is a choice of criteria for how you want to filter your e-mail.

For instance, you could set up a filter to sort all the e-mail which is FROM a particular sender into one mailbox. Eg: you could separate out all e-mail from "maetang@nu-it.demon.co.uk", if you were wanting to sort out mail from me. If I irritated you a lot with my e-mails, you could even set up filters to put all e-mails from me directly into the Trash. :^)

Or, all e-mail which has a particular SUBJECT into one mailbox. Eg: all e-mail with the words "How to manage e-mail" in the subject line could go into a particular mailbox.

Or, all e-mail which goes TO a particular recipient. For instance, all e-mail you get which has been sent to "AAGTMembers@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG" could be filtered into one mailbox.

How do I set up filters in Eudora?
I'll give you an example of how to do this for Eudora.

In your In box, click on one of the mails which you would like to filter (eg: click on an e-mail from the AAGT Members list.) When that is highlighted by your clicking on it, look at the menu options at the top of Eudora, and click on "Special" and "Make Filter".

You will see:

Match Conditions. The Incoming and Manual options will already be ticked.

Select "Any Recipient".

Look at "Action", and select "Transfer to New Mailbox".

Click "create filter". That should do it! Eudora will create a new mailbox for e-mails from the AAGT Members list, and new e-mails which you get addressed to the list should automatically go into that mailbox.

If you want to filter your existing e-mails so that old mails from the list go into the new mailbox, select the e-mails and click on "Special" and "Filter Messages".

How do I set up filters in Gmail?
In your Gmail inbox, look up to where there's the option "Search Mail" and "Search the Web". Beside that there's two small options including "Create a filter". Click on that.

An orange box appears with different criteria. You can create filters based on "From", "To", "Subject", etc.

Try creating a new filter for e-mails sent TO "AAGTMembers@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG".

If you want, at this point you can choose "Test Search" to show you which messages will fall under that category. If you're happy with that, click on "Next Step".

Now you can choose various actions which will apply to e-mails sent to "AAGTMembers@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG".

You can create and apply labels to all e-mails which were sent to the AAGTMembers list. That will allow you to see at a glance which ones those are in the your in box. You can delete all those e-mails in one go. And so on.

For now, I'll apply a label to all those mails. Click on "Apply the label". Select "Choose label" from the dropdown box. Click on "New label". Give your new label a name (Eg: "AAGTMembers").

You also have the option to retroactively apply the filter to all the e-mails below. Click on the little ticky box if you want that option, and then click "Create Filter".

When you next look at your inbox, you will be able to see at once which e-mails are from the AAGTMembers list.

There's more information on using filters in Gmail here:

[http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6579 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6579

]Incidentally, if you find that you are somehow seeing 2 copies of e-mails now, try this:

"Edit the filter to tick the box 'Bypass the Inbox (Archive it)' or something like that.

"It's not that you have it twice. Gmail doesn't have mailboxes but labels and it shows under whichever label(s) it carries. Ticking that box removes the inbox label."

Thanks to Seán and Peter for finding this out, and providing a solution!

How do I set up filters in Outlook?
In Outlook, filters are called "message rules", and there's a "Rules Wizard", which can help you manage those. There's more information on that here:

[http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010173281033.aspx http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010173281033.aspx

]And there's information on using rules on www.slipstick.com, including how "To use a rule to filter all the items from a mailing list", here:

[http://www.slipstick.com/rules/mailinglist.htm http://www.slipstick.com/rules/mailinglist.htm

How do I set up filters in Yahoo?
(Thanks to Charlie for this section!) What are filters, and how can I set them up?: Filters automatically sort your incoming messages into folders that you create using the Yahoo! interface. They work according to rules that you set up ­ for example, you can create a filter that automatically delivers messages from the AAGT Members List to a folder called “AAGT." Filters can save you time, since you don't need to read through each message to decide where it goes.

'To create, edit, or delete a filter fin Yahoo!Mail: '

Creating a New Filter   1. Sign in to your account. You'll be prompted to enter your Yahoo! ID and password if you haven't already.

2. Click "Options" in the upper-right corner of the page and then choose "Mail Options" from the pull-down menu.

3. On the page that opens, select "Filters."

4. On the Filters page, click the "Create or edit filters" link.

The original Mail Filters page opens in a new window or tab.

5. Click the "Add" button. The Add Message Filter page appears. This is where you define the rule and the destination for the new filter.

6. Enter a unique name for the new filter in the "Filter Name" box, such as "AAGT." If you don't enter a name, Yahoo will automatically create a name for the filter when it adds it to your filter list.

7. Define the condition or conditions for the filter's rule. For each condition, you must specify the following:

o The matching criterion, such as "contains" or "ends with."

o The target text, for example, "@rocketmail.com", "AAGT", "Gestalt".

o The case-sensitivity of the match. Check the box next to "match case" to indicate a case-sensitive match; otherwise the match is case-insensitive.

8. From the "Move the message to" pull-down list, choose the destination folder to which you want the message delivered. If you want the filter to direct messages to a new folder, select "[New Folder\" from the pull-down menu. When Yahoo! Email adds the new filter (that is, after you click the "Add Filter" button), it prompts you for a name and creates the new folder.

9. If you have configured your mobile device for alerts and would like to send an alert to your mobile device when this filter is activated, check the box next to "Send an alert to my Mobile Device."

10. Click the "Add Filter" button to save the filter.

The new filter appears in the list of filters on your Filters page and the total number of filters increases by one.

'Ordering Your Filters 'If you have more than one filter, you'll see "up" and "down" arrows to the right of the list of filters on the Filters page. Use these buttons to select the placement of your new filter within your existing sequence of filters.

Why is filter order important? It determines which filter is applied first. For example, Filter 1 will be the first filter applied to an incoming message, Filter 2 will be the next, and so on, until a match is made or all filters have been applied. If no filters match an incoming message, it will be delivered to your inbox.

'Editing or Deleting a Filter 'To edit or delete a filter, visit the Filters page and click the filter you'd like to edit or delete. Click the "Edit" button to change the filter; the "Delete" button to erase the filter. If you edit your filter, be sure to click the "Save Changes" button when you're done.

MANAGING YOUR MAILING LIST SUBSCRIPTION
=== What is a Digest?===

At the moment, unless you've already changed the list settings for yourself, you're probably getting all e-mails to this mailing list one at a time. If you set the mailing list to give you all e-mails in a Digest format, what you get is one big e-mail at regular intervals, which contains ALL the e-mails sent to the Members list within a certain time frame.

This cuts down on the number of individual e-mails you get, while still getting the contents of the list to you.

How do I set the list to send me e-mails in a Digest format?
If you're unfamiliar with LISTSERV mailing list commands, it may be easier to do this through the webpage for this mailing list. You can find that here:

[http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?A0=AAGTMembers http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?A0=AAGTMembers

]When you look at that page, you can see that you need to login. Click on "Get Password". Type in your e-mail address. I think this has to be the e-mail address by which you are subscribed to the mailing list.

Choose a password, and type that in. Register the password. You'll then get an e-mail from LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG which contains a link for you to click on, to finish registering your password. When you have clicked on that link, and been taken to the page it opens up, return again to

[http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?A0=AAGTMembers http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?A0=AAGTMembers

]Now you can log in using your e-mail address, and the password you created. This takes you to a page where you can see the archives of the AAGTMembers mailing list.

Those of you who are thinking ahead may connect this with the use of the NOMAIL function. Yes, if you set your subsciption to NOMAIL, you can still read and post through the archives! This actually turns the mailing list into something like a message board, for those of you who would prefer that kind of functionality to e-mail! But anyway. For now, I'll go on explaining the Digest function. *** In the upper right hand corner of the webpage, click on "Subscribers Corner". This shows you all the ICORS mailing lists which you are subcribed to. Find the AAGTMembers list, and next to it, click on "Settings". See all the groovy things you can do here, with your mailing list subscription?! :^)

At the moment, under "Subscription type", you are probably have "Regular" selected. There's options for Digests - several different flavours of them. Also for an Index mode. If you're uncertain about what the different options are, click on the little question mark icon beside "Subscription type". That explains the options more.

At any rate, you can select the Digest option which most appeals to you. Or go for an Index.

(Note that you can also set the list to NOMAIL, under "Miscellaneous", with "Mail delivery disabled temporarily". But I'll cover that again another time.)

And then click on "Update Options" to save your new Settings for the list.

How to set the list to NOMAIL. Or: What happens if I want to go on holiday, and I don't want to get home to 60 billion e-mails?
It's possible to stop the list sending you e-mail for a time without actually unsubscribing from it altogether. That's what "NOMAIL" is about. And yes, you can use this option when you're planning to go away on holiday, and don't want to come back to loads of e-mail. Or, when you want a break from the list. Or, you could even set the list to NOMAIL but go on reading it or replying or posting via the online archives.

That means that in a way, you could use the NOMAIL setting with the list achives to treat the list something like a message board!

How do you go about setting the list to NOMAIL?

Follow the instructions I gave on setting the list to Digest mode, until you get to the page with "Settings" for the AAGT Members list. Look at "Miscellaneous". The option you want is "Mail delivery disabled temporarily". Select that, and "Update Options" to save your new settings for the list.

If/when you are ready to come off "NOMAIL", simply go back to that page, and uncheck the "Mail delivery disabled temporarily" box, and then "Update Options" again.