If your email inbox could use a little spring cleaning, then keep watching because I’ve
got a simple trick to show you today, which involves using a feature that’s built right
into the Apple Mail program to help you get a handle on the situation.
That info coming up next on Tech Talk America.
(Music)
Hey, folks.
Before we start today, I just want to take a brief moment to thank those of you out there
who have watched my videos over the years.
This is probably my last video for 2018; of course, I’ll be back in 2019.
I absolutely love getting to make these videos.
I want to say also a very special thank you to those of you who went the extra mile and
made a financial contribution in 2018 to help support my YouTube channel.
So, thank you to those of you who have supported me.
I will continue to crank-out great content for all of you in 2019.
So, without any further ado, back to the real class.
So, what I’m going to be showing you today is how to use a feature built into the Apple
Mail program referred to as a Rule, and then we’re going to look for common characteristics
of emails that you tend to not really care about.
Then, what we’re going to do is move those messages into a separate mailbox so that they’re
all separate, leaving behind mostly the messages you care about.
One of the things I want to make very clear in this video is that the feature that I’m
about to show you, you could either choose to leave on, but I think a lot of you out
there might want to just use this feature now and then; for example, when you feel like
your email inbox is getting a bit clogged up, you just turn on this rule, apply it,
and then turn it off.
Part of the reason why I say that is there is definitely a risk that you could lose messages
that you really do care about.
Over the course of this video, I’m going to show you how to make sure that hopefully
does not happen; and if you do experience it, how to easily get out of it.
So, without any further ado, let’s switch over to my Mac.
All right, everyone.
Let’s start by opening-up the Apple Mail application.
Please understand that this email account that I use is a demo account, so there’s
not really a lot of email to work with here; but if you do take a look at the messages,
these are pretty much all junk.
So, when all is said and done, it should automatically filter basically the entire inbox.
The first thing we need to do here to get started is we need to create a brand-new mailbox
so that we have a place to store all of this junk.
So, let’s go up here to where it says Mailbox at the very top, and we’re going to go down
here to where it says New Mailbox about midway down.
From here, it’s going to ask you, “Where do you want to store this mailbox?”
For those of you out there who have multiple email addresses, you’ll find each of your
accounts listed here; just pick whichever one you want to use to be the catch-all, basically
– in this case, I’m going to use iCloud – and then just call this new mailbox “Probably
Junk” and hit Okay.
Now, the next step involves creating a rule so that the computer knows exactly what types
of emails we’re going to filter into that new mailbox.
From here, we’re going to go to where it says Mail at the very top left, and go to
the second item down which is Preferences.
From this next window, we’re going to go here to the last option, which is Rules; and
from here, we’re going to hit Add New Rule.
At this point, you can change the description to “Probably Junk.”
The next item we’re going to keep just the way it is; we’re going to leave it, “If
any of the following conditions are met.”
From here, we can start to assemble our rule.
Click on where it says From, and let’s go down here towards the middle of the screen
to where it says, “Sender is not in my contacts,” and then we’re going to add a second rule.
So, let’s hit the little plus symbol just to the right, and we’re going to also say,
“If the person is not in my previous Recipients.”
Then, the final part here you’ll see it says, “Perform the following actions,”
and we want it to move the message to – and at this point you’ll have to point it to
the brand-new mailbox that you’ve created – Probably Junk.
Now, hit Okay, and watch what happens.
So, automatically it’s going to ask, “Do you want to apply these rules now?”
I’m going to hit Apply and check it out.
You see how every message just disappeared?
Well, it didn’t disappear; it just got moved.
If I click here now into Probably Junk, check it out: it has automatically moved all of
those emails.
From here, there are a few other tricks that I would like to share with you.
So, inside of this mailbox, by default you can see it is sorting our emails by date;
but because the idea here is we’re going to start to clear-out large groups of email,
you might want to consider instead switching it to From; that way, all of the emails from
one particular company or person will all be grouped together.
Now, as you go through this list, inevitably you are probably going to find a few legitimate
emails; and if you do, all you really need to do is add that person to your contacts,
and that way they won’t end up in the Probably Junk folder in the future.
The easiest way to add someone quickly to your contacts is just to simply hover your
cursor over the name or the email address that you see listed here in the header of
the email.
Then, click on the teeny tiny little arrow that you see to the right, and you’ll notice
that Add to Contacts is one of the options that will pop up.
Another important thing that I have to make sure I point out in this class is that rules
only work if the Apple Mail program on your Mac is running.
So, for example, let’s say you decide to do all this on your work computer and then
shut down your computer at the end of the day: you will notice that if you check your
email on your iPhone, those new junk messages are still going to come into the inbox.
But then, as soon as you turn on your Mac and open the Apple Mail program, the rule
will then move those emails automatically on all of your devices.
Now, from here, it should be fairly easy for you to quickly delete all of these messages.
If you’re not aware of it, one of the ways that you can select large amounts of messages
at a time, and delete them, is if you click on the first item, then hold the Shift key,
and click on the last item.
All of the emails in between will be selected.
Then, from there, just simply tap the Delete key.
Now, if you decide you don’t want to keep this rule running on your computer, which
I would totally understand, just go back to Mail Preferences.
Here, where it says Active, just uncheck this box.
Then, if at some point in time your email gets clogged again, just come back and re-check
it.
Thank you so much for watching, everyone.
Keep in mind that if you would ever like to take a private lesson with yours truly, it
is one of those things I really do enjoy doing.
So, whether you want to get into video editing, need help with organizing your photos, if
you want to start a YouTube channel, and a whole bunch of other different topics, you
can find out all the different things that I do cover on my website at techtalkamerica.com/privatelessons.
Thank you for watching, everyone.
This is David A. Cox, with Tech Talk America.
Class dismissed.