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  2. Setting up a Mail Filter, including "Plus Addressing"

Setting up a Mail Filter, including "Plus Addressing"

Note: DO NOT use these instructions if you have your CS mail forwarded to another address. These instructions are for Webmail and Gmail (CS Google Apps).

To Set a Mail Filter in Webmail:

  • In a web browser, go to webmail.cs.umd.edu

  • Login using your CS username and password

  • In the grey “Roundcube” menu bar towards the top-right of the screen, Click the icon that looks like a cogwheel for “Settings.”

  • In the pale-blue section at the left of the screen, under Settings, click Filters

  • In the column for “Filters” (note: NOT “filter sets”), click the + symbol at the bottom of the column.

  • In the box next to “Enter a Filter Name,” enter an appropriate name for the filter.

The remaining steps provide an example of setting a filter for the specific use-case of using “plus addressing” to send a copy of an email that I have received to another user’s email address. Assume I receive an email addressed to MyUserName+extension@cs.umd.edu, where I have provided my email address using a “+extension”. See Below for a description of “plus addressing”

  • In the box “For incoming mail,” click on the left-most box and change “Subject” to “To”.

  • Click on the Middle box and change “contains” to “is equal to”.

  • Click on the right-most box and enter your “plus address”, e.g. MyUserName+extension@cs.umd.edu

  • In the box “execute the following actions,” click on the left-most box and change “Move message to” to “send message copy to”.

  • In the empty box enter the email address for the individual who you would like to receive a copy of the message.

  • Click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page.

To Set a Mail Filter in Gmail:

  • In a web browser, go to gmail.com

  • Login using your CS email and password

  • Near the top right of the screen, Click the icon that looks like a cogwheel for Settings.

  • A drop-down menu will appear with several options. Select the ‘Settings’ option.

  • You will now see several options in blue text near the top of the screen. Select the option titled ‘Filters and Blocked Addresses’.

  • In the center of the screen you should now see blue text that says ‘Create a new filter’. Select that.

Just like the instructions for Webmail, the remaining steps provide an example of setting a filter for the specific use-case of using “plus addressing” to send a copy of an email that I have received to another user’s email address. Assume I receive an email addressed to MyUserName+extension@cs.umd.edu, where I have provided my email address using a “+extension”. See Below for a description of “plus addressing”

  • In the box that’s labelled ‘To:’, write out the full email with the extension (For Example: username+filtertest@cs.umd.edu).

  • Once that’s done, click on the blue text in the bottom right corner of the filter window that says ‘Create filter with this search’.

  • From here, there are several options for choosing what to do with emails sent to the filter’s address. In this case we’d like to forward all of these emails to username2@cs.umd.edu. (If you haven’t created a forwarding address already, you’d have to do so by Clicking the blue text beside the ‘Forward It’ checkbox that says ‘add forwarding address’ and Pressing the button that says ‘Add a forwarding address’. This will reset your process in creating the filter though, so after this you should go to the ‘Filters and Blocked Addresses’ section and start again from step 6.)

  • Once you have a forwarding address set, just check the ‘Forward it’ box, select the proper address in the dropbox, and hit the blue ‘Create Filter’ button on the bottom.

    About “Plus Addressing”

    “Plus addressing” provides a useful mechanism for filtering your mail, e.g., when you subscribe to a mailinglist, you can add a plus sign and an extension following your userName and that message will be delivered to you normally, i.e., username+textExtension@cs.umd.edu will still send to username@cs.umd.edu. You can create filters in your email client that use the plus address to store the email in a specific folder or send a copy to another person, etc.

Last edited on 2016-12-07

Converted to Markup in 2017-05-19