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Rule Lesson:
Mailing List Manager

If you belong to mailing lists like the Entourage Talk list or the YouTalk list, I would create a Mailing List Manager rule and move these out first. Most lists generate a lot of messages, unless you are on the digest. Moving these out of your Inbox will get the bulk of your mail out.

Obviously, if you don't belong to a mailing list, you can skip this step, but mailing lists are excellent ways to learn. Along the way you'll also belong to a community of Mac users that will be there to help you when you have trouble. I suggest these to get you started.

One of the options in a Mailing List Manager rule is to allow other Rules to run on those messages. Be sure to uncheck "Do not apply rules to list messages" if you want to run further rules. For example, see this tip to help identify messages from the "knowledgeable" contributors. Then when you're in a hurry, you can scan just those messages.

Setup your Mailing List Manager rules

• Select a mailing list message. (Entourage uses the selected message to help fill in criteria)
• Open the Mailing List Manager under Tools in the Menu bar. Select New.
• The MLM will recognize the message that was selected and fill in most of info required for you. (Note some lists show to reply to sender rather than to the list. Be sure to check the desired behavior.)
• Create a folder for the list. (I suggest making a root folder for mailing lists and then create subfolders for each list.) see example
• Save the MLM rule
• In the Inbox select All Messages and use the contextual menu (hold Control key down) and select "Apply Rules" --> "All Rules." This will move out all messages for that MLM rule.
  • Do this step after each MLM or custom rule you create.
  • By running All Rules this tests that the previous rules have not acted on your message and will indicate if you need to modify or move a rule higher in the list.
  • Rules run in a specific order. See Basics
• Continue with all your mailing lists messages.
• Continue with step 2: deal with junk mail.