Filters

Filters
	Chapter 15. KMail — The KDE Mail Application
The Address Book		Mail Encryption with PGP or GnuPG

Filters enable automatic processing of incoming messages and manual processing of selected messages in a folder. To filter selected messages to a specific folder, highlight the messages and enter Ctrl + J to activate existing filter rules or select ‘Message’ -> ‘Create Filter’ to create a new one. In doing so, all existing filter rules are applied to this message. There is no way to use only certain filters.

Filter Rules

A filter consists of one or several filter rules and filter actions. A filter rule can select messages according to criteria, such as the sender, content, or recipient. The respective filter action can perform tasks like moving, deleting, marking, or forwarding these messages.

Examples of Filters

Assume, for instance, you are subscribed to the KDE user list kde-user@kde.org. Whenever a message from the mailing list arrives, the mail is moved into another folder. The following steps are necessary for creating this filter.

Add a new folder as described in Section “Message Folders”. Assign a name, such as kde-user.
First, find a way of identifying messages to filter. The messages of the KDE user list described in our example can be identified by the kde-user@kde.org address, found in the ‘To’: or ‘Cc’: field.
Click ‘Settings’ -> ‘Configure Filters’. The left side of the window that opens displays the existing filters. The right side is composed of two panels: filter rules and filter actions.
Click the ‘New’ icon to create an empty filter. It appears as unknown.
Select ‘To:’ or ‘Cc:’ from the first drop-down menu and ‘contains’ from the second drop-down menu. Enter kde-user@kde.org in the text field.
In ‘Filter actions’, select ‘Move to Folder’ from the first drop-down menu. A second drop-down menu with the list of folders appears. Choose the folder to which the filtered messages should be moved if they meet the desired criteria. In this case, choose kde-user from the drop-down menu.
Confirm the changes with ‘OK’.

More complex filters are also possible. You may want to save only the messages from the KDE user list written by Fred Johnson (fj@anywhere.com). Here, the remaining filter criteria come into play:

Click ‘Settings’ -> ‘Configure Filters’ and mark the newly created filter.
To filter all messages containing kde-user@kde.org in the ‘To:’ or ‘Cc:’ fields and originating from Fred, define a second filter under ‘Filter Criteria’ using the second row of drop-down menus. Select ‘From’ in the first menu and ‘contains’ in the second. Then enter the e-mail address to filter. Activate ‘Applies to all’.
Select the action to execute (move, delete, etc.).

You have now created a filter that transfers all mails from Fred Johnson on the KDE user list as specified.