Learning the Mail "Rules" Lesson the Hard Way

[First let me apologize to everyone in advance for spamming their inboxes relentlessly. OK, now I’ll move on.]

As I write this, it’s like the calm before the storm, because in the morning, everyone in my Address Book is going to discover a nasty surprise: One message from me for each message they have ever sent me. EVER.

Let me start from the beginning. I began changing (read: screwing) with my Apple Mail settings because I wanted to set an automated reply message when I’m out of the office. Sounds normal, right? Well, I figured that I needed to create a new rule in Mail to do this, but I wasn’t sure exactly how. I searched in Help, which gave me the exact directions I was looking for (by the way, I’m still surprised that today was the first time I’ve ever tried to do this). I proceeded from there, and it seemed fairly straightforward, but it was not to be.

Here was the dreaded text that appeared:

What this screen shot doesn’t show you is that the “Yes” button is highlighted in blue, so if you click through without stopping to think about it, guess what? Everyone in your Inbox gets a sweet little reply message for EVERY email they have ever sent. Fantastic.

So, please allow me to recap:
1) I’m sorry.
2) Mail rules may take a little practice to get the desired effect (in this case, do not apply rule to messages already in your Inbox).
3) For the love of Apple, PAY ATTENTION to those pop up windows when they ask you something!!

I hope this helps you before you make a dreadful mistake that even the fastest trigger finger can’t undo. Now if you need me, I’ll be out of the office.