Mail sucks generally and rules don't work

[27 houdini's]

i want to send an autoreply to all new senders who send mail to a specific address. The next time they send a message they should not get an autoreply.

So my rule setup is (see screenshot):

if all the following conditions are met:
to - is equal to - bogus@bull.com +
sender is not in my previous recipients

perform the following actions:
move message to mailbox x
Reply to message with this text

The idea is that these *new* senders (from whom i did not previously receive a message) get this reply mail *once* - only the first time i receive a message from them. The next time they send me a message they should not get an autoreply.

But this configuration does not work!

It only works if I set it to:
to - contains - bogus@bull.com

The result of this last setup is that everybody who ever sent me a message (also the previous recipients) to the specific address bogus@bull.com gets the automatic reply!

Does anyone know a working configuration or an applescript?

I general i am *very* disappointed with Mail app because various mails i get whatever my configuration of rules and the junk mail filter gets tagged as junk, even mails i sent myself (those in the sent items box)

Not to mention the unreliability of rules

I even consider switching to (puke-barf) entourage! Bhuuhhaw

 

[fryke]

The "to" field often contains more than just the E-Mail address (i.e. a name, too...). So you have to use "contains". Then it works fine, doesn't it?

 

[ra3ndy]

Also, sometimes it helps if, at the end of the actions, you add another action and set it to "Stop evaluating rules"

I don't know why, but it makes 90% of my rules work when they otherwise wouldn't.

 

[Whitehill]

I have a bunch of rules that seem to work pretty well at intercepting junk and dropping it in a special folder. Except ...

I turned my machine off for the weekend. On restarting this morning, my inbox was flooded by several hundred messages, all marked as junk, but not moved. Messages received since restarting are marked AND moved. Have I done something wrong or is this a feature?