You can sort mail into different folders according to specified criteria (sender, subject, date, etc.) using filters. Filters are very powerful, but in this guide we will only be able to look at some simple filter rules. Feel free to explore the filters tool ( -> ).
Let us assume you want to filter incoming messages according to the sender and you have at least one message from that sender in your Inbox folder. You want all incoming e-mail from someuser@somecompany.net to go directly into the SomeUser folder.
Highlight the message from the sender you want to filter and choose -> from the menu. The filter creation window (Figure 9.10, “The Filter Creation Window”) will appear.
If the SomeUser folder does not exist, click on the button. In the Name field, enter the name of the new folder (SomeUser in our example). The Create as a sub-folder of pull-down list specifies the parent folder for the one you are about to create. Select the desired parent folder by navigating the folder tree and selecting Choose this for the parent. Click to create the new folder.
And that's all. You can change the Filter name if you want to (by default the filter's name is sender's mail address). Use the More and Fewer buttons to add and remove filtering criteria to the rule and, once you are satisfied with your settings, click on to accept the rule. You can create as many filtering rules as you want. By moving rules up and down in the Message Filters list, you can actually create a very complex and efficient set of filtering rules.
Mozilla Messenger
suggests a simple way to deal with unsolicited mail messages, also
known as “spam”: the junk mail control. Clicking on
this button in the toolbar will mark the currently selected
message as junk mail. This way, you can train Mozilla to
have it recognize messages similar to the one selected as spam and
perform actions on them. Click again on the button to mark a
junk-mail message as good mail.
Choose -> from the menu and click on to display the junk-control window (Figure 9.11, “Junk-Mail Control Options”). The example configures the junk-mail control to move messages determined to be junk mail to the Junk folder of the defined account, automatically delete junk mail after two weeks and immediately delete messages manually marked as junk. The different options available are self-explanatory.