How to Set up a Filter in Yahoo! Mail

Updated November 22, 2019

If you get a lot of emails, especially if you get a lot of work emails, bills, spam, subscriptions, and notifications, it may overwhelm your inbox. Yahoo Mail can group incoming emails automatically for you based on the criteria you set. When you create a filter based on specific criteria, you can move messages into folders, the archives, or the trash. Here's how to sort your incoming messages automatically before you see them.

To Create an Incoming Mail Rule in Yahoo Mail

To create a filter in Yahoo Mail, open a web browser and sign in to your Yahoo Mail account.

Select Settings.
Choose More settings.
On the Yahoo Settings page, select the Filters tab.
In the Your filters section, select Add new filters.
Fill in the form that appears to the right. (See the examples below.)

To edit an existing filter, follow the same procedure, but instead of selecting Add new filters, select the filter you want to change, then change the criteria as desired.

Yahoo Mail Filter Rule Examples

You can sort your email in a number of ways. Here are a few common sample filters for mail:

From a certain sender: Enter the person's email address under From, so the line reads From contains sender@example.com; make sure Match case is not checked.
Sent to one of your alternate addresses: Put that address under To/CC.
From a mailing list that always arrives with "[List]" in the subject: Enter "[List]" under Subject so the line says Subject contains [List].
Marked "urgent" in the subject line: Set up the filter as Subject begins with [Urgent].
Not sent to you as a direct recipient: Make the To/CC line read To/CC does not contain me@yahoo.com.