Rules & auto reply

Rules sort new mail as it arrives: into a folder, under a label, starred, marked as read, or into Spam. An auto reply answers the people who write to you while you are away. Both are set per mailbox in Mail Settings, and neither touches mail that is already in your mailbox.

Make a rule

  1. In the Mail sidebar, click Settings, then Rules.
  2. Click New rule and give it a name, up to 80 characters. For example: Invoices.
  3. Under When a message arrives and, choose all of these match or any of these match, then set the conditions.
  4. Under Then, choose what happens to a message that matches.
  5. Optional: click Check against my Inbox (see below).
  6. Click Save rule.

A saved rule reads as a sentence in the list, such as: If From contains "acme" and Subject contains "invoice", move it to Receipts and star it.

Conditions

A rule needs at least one condition and can have up to 10.

It looks at You can say
From contains, is exactly, starts with
To or Cc contains, is exactly, starts with
Subject contains, is exactly, starts with
Message text contains, is exactly, starts with
Attachment is present, is absent

Matching ignores capital letters. A condition holds up to 200 characters, and the attachment condition checks whether the message has a file attached.

Actions

A rule needs at least one action and can have up to 6.

Action What it does
Move to a folder Files the message in Archive or another folder of that mailbox. Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Spam and Trash are not offered.
Add a label Adds one of the mailbox's labels.
Mark as read Marks the message as read.
Star it Stars the message.
Send to Spam Moves the message to Spam. Nothing is deleted.

Check a rule before you save it

A rule can hide mail from your Inbox, so test it first. Check against my Inbox reads your newest 200 Inbox messages and tells you how many the rule would have matched, with up to five examples. It changes nothing.

Order, switching off and deleting

Rules run in the order shown, top to bottom, and a later rule can override an earlier one. If two rules move the same message, the lower one wins. Use the arrows on a rule to move it up or down.

  • Clear On to pause a rule without losing it.
  • Click Edit to change a rule, or Delete to remove it.
  • A mailbox holds up to 50 rules. At 50, delete one to add another.

When rules run

Rules run once, right after a new message is filed in the mailbox. They do not rearrange mail you already have, and they do not run on mail you import. A problem inside a rule never stops a message from arriving.

What a rule cannot do

Rules you make in Mail move, label, star, mark as read and send to Spam. They do not forward mail and they do not match patterns. A mail administrator can set those up in the administration screens. You see a rule like that in your list with the tag Set up by an administrator. You can switch it on or off and delete it, but you cannot edit it.

Auto reply

An auto reply answers people who write to your mailbox while you are away.

  1. In the Mail sidebar, click Settings, then Auto reply.
  2. Tick Send an automatic reply.
  3. Write a Subject, up to 150 characters. It is "Automatic reply" if you leave it empty.
  4. Write the Message, plain text, up to 4,000 characters.
  5. Optional: pick a First day and a Last day. Leave both empty to reply until you turn it off.
  6. Click Save.

The line under the checkbox says what the reply is doing now, such as Off, On, On until the end of 5 Oct 2026, Starts 5 Oct 2026 or Ended 5 Oct 2026. Once it has dealt with someone, Mail also shows how many people it has replied to, or tried to reply to, in the last day.

Who gets a reply

  • Each person gets at most one reply in any 24 hours.
  • Mail that Mail can recognize as a mailing list, a no-reply address, a bounce or automatic mail is not answered, and neither is anyone on your workspace's suppression list.
  • A message that ends up in Spam or Trash is not answered, whether a rule or a blocked sender put it there. A message from the mailbox's own address is not answered either.
  • A mailbox sends at most 40 auto replies in an hour, so a burst of mail from many senders cannot become a burst of replies.
  • The reply is marked as automatic, so other auto repliers know not to answer it.

An auto reply goes out only if the mailbox can send mail. If sending is not working for the mailbox, nobody gets a reply.

Dates count in the time zone of the mailbox owner, so a Last day of Friday ends at the end of Friday where the owner is. If the owner has no time zone set, dates count in UTC. While the reply is switched on, you cannot set a Last day that has already passed, and it needs a message.

Shared mailboxes

Rules and the auto reply belong to the mailbox, not to a person. On a shared team inbox, everyone on the mailbox sees the same rules and the same auto reply, and any member can change them.

If you do not see these tabs

Rules and Auto reply appear when the Rules feature is on for your workspace. An administrator can check Settings → Mail → Features, where the feature is listed as mail.rules, and switch it on or off. If it is not listed there, ask us at company@everjust.co to turn it on.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-02

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