Use regexps on mail.app header filters

Aug 16, '01 05:01:22AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

The default header filters in Mail.app will fail to filter out headers like "Delivered-To:". To fix this, in the Preferences --> Viewing panel, on the Show Header Detail pop-up, click Custom then double click on the "To" filter, and change it to "^To:".

These filters are Regular Expressions, or regexps. They are patterns that match text. In regexp, a caret (^) at the beginning of the string means "the string starts with".

^To: - matches only strings that start with "To:".

The original pattern "To" happens to match the word "To" at the end of "Delivered-To". That's why you see that extra header line.

[Editor's note: regexps are incredibly powerful, and for those new to UNIX (like myself!), incredibly obtuse and confusing. I've been doing some reading on the web about them, and I found a tutorial written by Jan Borsodi which I found to be thorough and easy to read. Worth a view if you'd like to know more of what you can do with regexps; "^" is just the tip of the (large!) iceberg!]

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