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Mail rules in Outlook (also referred to as mail filters in other
e-mail programs) allow you to instruct Outlook to relocate or delete
incoming e-mail based on the characteristics of the e-mail (who sent it,
the subject matter, etc.). You can use these mail rules to organize your
e-mail and reduce the number of messages that go to your Inbox.
Here are the steps for creating mail rules:
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In the Outlook menu bar, click on Tools and then
Rules and Alerts.
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In the Rules and Alerts window that appears, choose from the Apply
changes to this folder drop-down box the mail account to which
you want to apply the rule.
- Click on the New Rule button on the left.
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The next window allows you to start designing your rule. In this example,
we are creating a rule from an existing template, so the default setting
Start creating a rule from a template is selected.
Because the most common mail
rule (or filter) is one that moves a message to a particular folder if the
message is from a particular person or group, the template
Move messages from someone to a folder is selected from
the list of templates.
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In the lower half of the window is the text of the rule. Certain words or
phrases that need to be defined for the rule are underlined in
blue. Clicking on the underlined word or phrase will give you the
opportunity to define it. In this example, click on the phrase
people or distribution list.
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The Rule Address window will appear. In this window, you will choose the
name of the person or group from your address book or your Contacts list
to which you want the rule to apply. In the Show names
from the drop-down
box, choose Contacts. A list of your contacts will
appear in the list on the left. Click on the person to whom you want the
rule to apply and click the From button to choose that
person.
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Click the OK button. You will return to the Rules Wizard
window. You can
see that the phrase people or distribution list has been changed to the
name and e-mail address of the person chosen in the previous step. Click
on the underlined phrase specified.
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A new window will appear that lists your available mail folders so you
can select to which folder messages from your contact person will be
moved. You can either select an existing folder or by using
the New button you can create a new folder. Once you have
selected the folder, click the OK button.
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You will return to the Rules Wizard window. Now that you have defined all
of the blue underlined phrases, the rule is complete. Click on the
Finish button.
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You will now return to the original Rules Wizard window, where you will
see a list of all of the current mail rules. You can create additional
rules by clicking on the New Rule button and repeating
the process. After you have a number of rules, you can change the order
in which the rules are
applied by using the blue up and down arrows above the list of rules
(Note: it is possible for an e-mail to meet the criteria for more
than one rule). Once you are done, click the OK button.
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Incoming e-mail messages will then be analyzed by Outlook as they arrive,
and the mail rules will be applied to the appropriate messages. In this
example, messages from Jane Someone (jane@umd.edu) will be moved into the
Jane mail folder as they arrive (instead of ending up in the Inbox like
other incoming messages).
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To learn more about mail rules, click on Help in the
menu bar and choose
Microsoft Office Outlook Help. When you are asked what
you want
to search for,
type "mail rules" (without the quotation marks) to read more
about mail rules in Outlook.
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