Testing for personal mail

A common requirement is to distinguish between incoming personal mail and mail from a mailing list. In particular, this test is normally required for so-called `vacation messages'. The condition

     personal

is a shorthand for

     $header_to: contains $local_part@$domain and
     $header_from: does not contain $local_part@$domain and
     $header_from: does not contain server@ and
     $header_from: does not contain daemon@ and
     $header_from: does not contain root@ and
     $header_subject: does not contain "circular" and
     $header_precedence: does not contain "bulk" and
     $header_precedence: does not contain "list" and
     $header_precedence: does not contain "junk"

The variable `$local_part' contains the local part of the mail address of the user whose filter file is being run -- it is normally your login id. The `$domain' variable contains the mail domain. This condition tests for the appearance of the current user in the `To:' header, checks that the sender is not the current user or one of a number of common daemons, and checks the content of the `Subject:' and `Precedence:' headers.

If prefixes or suffixes are in use for local parts -- something which depends on the configuration of Exim (see section 26 below) -- then the first two tests above are also done with

$local_part_prefix$local_part$local_part_suffix

instead of just $local_part. If the system is configured to rewrite local parts of mail addresses, for example, to rewrite `dag46' as `Dirk.Gently', then the rewritten form of the address is also used in the tests.

This example shows the use of personal in a filter file that is sending out vacation messages:

if personal then
  mail
   to $reply_address
   subject "Re: $h_subject:"
   file $home/vacation/message
   once $home/vacation/once
   once_repeat 10d
endif

It is quite common for people who have mail accounts on a number of different systems to forward all their mail to one system, and in this case a check for personal mail should test all their various mail addresses. To allow for this, the personal condition keyword can be followed by

alias <address>

any number of times, for example

personal alias smith@else.where alias jones@other.place

This causes messages containing the alias addresses in any places where the local address is tested to be treated as personal.

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