Selecting messages by header line content
To select messages by header line content, specify the header line to be tested (Subject, From, or To) and one or more phrases to be matched against it.
A phrase is simply a string of characters, usually one or more words.
Each phrase is compared to the header line and if that exact string occurs anywhere within the header line the message will be selected.
Upper and lower case don't matter.
For example, the phrase 'earn' will match any of the following lines:
Your chance to earn big bucks!
How To Increase Your Earning Power
LEARN HOW TO GET RICH
while the phrase 'mortgage info' will match
Mortgage Information
but not
Mortgage Rate Information
Wildcards. You may also use an asterisk as a wildcard character, but note that a wildcard phrase must match the entire contents of the header line (i.e. you must place wildcard characters so as to match everything in the line including any leading and trailing text you need to match).
For example, the wildcard phrase
*mortgage*info*
will match the following line (wildcard matches are underlined):
Super Mortgage Rates: Free Information.
while the phrase
*.com
will match any of these:
smith@hotmail.com
deals@computers.com
But note that if you had specified the above wildcard as
*.com*
(with a trailing asterisk) it would also have matched:
listserv@using.computers.org
which is probably not what you want.
Examples. Here are some examples of header line filtering.