Understanding email rules
Defining a new rule
Some rule examples
Managing email rules
Outlook lets you automate the handling of email messages with rules. A rule can do things such as moving messages from a specific person to a designated folder or deleting messages with certain words in the subject. Rules can also display alerts, play sounds, and move InfoPath forms and RSS feed items. Rules can help you save time and stay organized.
Outlook email rules are all similar in that they specify a condition and an action. A rule can be defined to apply to email messages when they arrive, which is most common, and also to messages as you send them. The Rules Wizard, where you create rules, provides a set of partially defined rules for commonly needed actions—all you need to do is fill in the details. It also provides the capability to define a rule completely from scratch, a feature you'll use if one of the existing rule templates does not meet your needs.
To create a new email rule, select Rules and Alerts from the Tools menu. Outlook displays the Rules and Alerts dialog box where you should select the E-mail Rules tab. If you have any rules already defined they will be listed here. You can work with existing rules as described later in this chapter. To create a new rule, click the New Rule button to display the Rules Wizard, as shown in Figure 9.1.
You can see that there are two parts to this dialog box, Select a Template at the top and Edit the Rule Description at the bottom. The following sections look at these in turn.
The Select a Template portion of this dialog box is divided into three sections, each containing two or more templates:
Stay Organized: Templates that move, delete, or flag messages or other items.
Stay Up to Date: Templates for alerting you when messages arrive.
Start from a Blank Rule: Templates that are empty and let you define a rule from scratch.
The remainder of this section deals with the first two of these categories. Starting from a blank rule is covered separately later in this chapter.
When you click an item in the Select a Template section, the Edit the Rule Description section displays the rule definition along with an example. Editing the definition is covered in the next section.
A rule definition contains underlined elements that represent the parts of the rule that you can edit. Figure 9.2, for example, shows a definition with two editable elements: "people or distribution list" and "specified." When you click such an underlined element, Outlook opens a dialog box where you can specify the details. In this example:
Click "people or distribution list" to open a dialog box where you can select the people and/or distribution lists from your address book. The rule is applied to messages from the selected people.
Click "specified" to select a folder to which matching messages will be moved.
After you have made selections for the editable rule items, the rule displays the selected information. An example is shown in Figure 9.3 where the rule is defined to move messages from to the specific folder. Note that these elements of the rule are still underlined, and can be clicked to make changes to the rule as needed.
At this point the rule is ready to use. You can click Finish in the Rules Wizard dialog box to save the rule. In some cases you may want to fine-tune the rule, in which case click the Next button. Fine-tuning a rule is essentially the same as creating a rule from a blank template, covered in the next section.
If the rule templates that Outlook provides do not suit your needs, you can create a rule from a blank template. In the first step of the Rules Wizard, shown earlier in Figure 9.1, you must select one of the following from the Start from a Blank Rule section:
Check Messages When They Arrive: To create a rule that works with messages you receive.
Check Messages After Sending: To create a rule that works with messages you send.
After making your selection, click the Next button. Outlook displays the next wizard step as shown in Figure 9.4. You use this dialog box to specify the conditions for the rule. You can have more than one condition for a rule. When you do, all conditions must be met for a message to be processed. The steps to follow are described next.
Click the box next to a description to place a checkmark in the box and add the condition to the rule description.
If the condition requires it, click the underlined element in the description to specify the details.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 if needed to add additional conditions to the rule.
Click the Next button to proceed to the next wizard step where you will define the rule's action. This dialog box is shown in Figure 9.5.
Put a checkmark next to the action that you want to be part of the rule.
If necessary, click any underlined element in the action to specify the details.
Click Next to display the next wizard step where you specify any exceptions to the rule (see Figure 9.6). An exception lets you modify a rule as in this example: If the message subject contains the word "free" then delete it unless the sender is in my contacts list. Exceptions are optional, and they are added the same way as conditions and actions.
Click Next to go to the final step of the wizard (see Figure 9.7). In this dialog box you specify a name for the rule and have the opportunity to edit the rule by clicking underlined elements in the rule description. You can also set the following options:
Click Finish to complete the rule definition and return to the Rules and Alerts dialog box.
Outlook email rules are admittedly rather complex. It may help you to understand them if you follow the steps required to define a few different kinds of rules.
This first rule example shows you how to define a rule that moves all messages from a certain domain to a specified folder. It would be useful if, for example, you are doing some contracting work for a company and are interacting with several people there. This rule moves all email that you receive from anyone at that company into one folder, helping you to stay organized.
The first step is to create the folder:
In the mail navigation pane, click the location where you want to place the new folder. You can click a mailbox if you want the new folder to be at the top level in that mailbox. You can also click an existing folder to create the new folder within that folder. See Figure 9.8.
Click the arrow next to the New button on the toolbar and select Folder from the menu. Outlook displays the Create New Folder dialog box, as shown in Figure 9.9.
Enter the new folder name in the Name box.
Make sure that Mail and Post Items is selected in the Folder Contains list.
Click OK.
Now that you have created the folder you can proceed to defining the rule:
Select Tools, Rules and Alerts from the Outlook menu to display the Rules and Alerts dialog box.
On the E-mail Rules tab, click the New Rule button. Outlook displays the Rules Wizard dialog box.
In the Stay Organized section, click the "Move messages from someone to a folder" template.
In the Edit the Rule Description section, click the "people or distribution list" link. Outlook displays the Rule Address dialog box (see Figure 9.10).
If you wanted to move messages from a single individual who is in your contacts list, you could click that person's entry in the list and then click the From button. Because you want to move all messages from a domain, enter "
acme.com" in the From box (without the quotes, of course).Click OK.
Outlook may display a dialog box claiming not to recognize "
acme.com" because it is not a complete email address. This is okay—just click Cancel to close this dialog box and return to the Rules Wizard.In the Edit the Rule Description section, click the "specified" link. Outlook displays the dialog box shown in Figure 9.11.
Select the desired destination folder and click OK. Note: If you had not created the new folder earlier, you could do it now by clicking the New button in this dialog box.
Back in the Rules Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button to close the Rules Wizard and return to the Rules and Alerts dialog box.
After you create a rule you will see it listed in the Rules and Alerts dialog box. It is assigned a default name based on the information in the rule. You can, if desired, change the rule name as explained later in this chapter in the section on managing rules.
This rule example shows you how you can use a rule to help guard against spam. Say you receive a lot of junk email offering to sell you prescription medication online. However, the subject of the message is often disguised, so you want to define a rule that looks for the word "prescription" in both the subject and the body of the message—if the word is found, delete the message.
But there's a wrinkle—you do in fact get some meds from a legitimate online drug store, and you do not want emails from them to be caught—so the rule will have to include an exception. Here are the steps for creating this rule:
Select Tools, Rules and Alerts from the Outlook menu to display the Rules and Alerts dialog box.
On the E-mail Rules tab, click the New Rule button. Outlook displays the Rules Wizard dialog box.
In the Start from a Blank Rule section, click the Check Messages When They Arrive template.
Click Next to display a list of conditions.
Put a checkmark next to "with specific words in the subject or body."
In the lower part of this dialog box, click the "specific words" link to open the Search Text dialog box (see Figure 9.12).
Enter the word "prescription" in the upper box and click Add to add the word to the list. If you wanted to search for more than one word you would repeat this step as needed.
Click OK to return to the Rules Wizard dialog box.
Click Next to display a list of actions.
Put a checkmark next to the Delete It action. This moves matching messages to the Deleted Items folder. You can also select the Permanently Delete It action, which does precisely what it says.
Click Next to display a list of exceptions.
Put a checkmark next to the "Except if from people or distribution list" exception.
In the lower part of the dialog box, click the "people or distribution list" link to display the Rule Address dialog box.
If the legitimate online pharmacy's address is in your contacts list you can add it using the From button. Otherwise just type it in the From box and click OK.
Back in the Rules Wizard dialog box, click Finish to complete your rule definition.
The final rule example shows you how to process messages that you send. Suppose your major client is Acme Corporation and you have created an Outlook category specifically for items related to Acme. You would like any and all messages you send to Acme to be placed in this category automatically. Here's how:
Select Tools, Rules and Alerts from the Outlook menu to display the Rules and Alerts dialog box.
On the E-mail Rules tab, click the New Rule button. Outlook displays the Rules Wizard dialog box.
In the Start from a Blank Rule section, click the Check Messages after Sending template.
Click Next to display a list of conditions.
Put a checkmark next to "sent to people or distribution list."
In the lower part of the dialog box, click the "people or distribution list" link to open the Rule Address dialog box.
Enter "
acme.com" in the To box and click OK.Outlook may display a dialog box claiming not to recognize "
acme.com" because it is not a complete email address. This is okay—just click Cancel to close this dialog box and return to the Rules Wizard.Click Next to display a list of actions.
Put a checkmark next to the Assign it to the Category Category option.
In the lower part of the dialog box, click the "category" link to open the Color Categories dialog box (see Figure 9.13).
Put a checkmark next to the desired category—in this case Acme—and click OK to return to the Rules Wizard dialog box.
Back in the Rules Wizard dialog box, click Finish to complete your rule definition.
When you select Rules and Alerts from the Tools menu, the E-mail Rules tab in the Rules and Alerts dialog box lists all the rules defined (see Figure 9.14). If you have more than one rule, they are applied in top-down order. The actions you can take in this dialog box are
To edit a rule, click it and then click the Change Rule button. Then select Edit Rule Settings or Rename Rule from the menu.
To change a rule's position in the list, click it and then click the up or down arrow button.
To copy a rule, click it and then click the Copy button. Outlook makes a copy of the rule, which you can then rename and modify as desired.
To delete a rule, click it and then click the Delete button.
To run rules, click the Run Rules Now button. Then, in the dialog box displayed, select the rules to run and the folder(s) and messages to apply the rules to (see Figure 9.15).
To inactivate a rule, click the adjacent box to remove the checkmark.
To import or export your rules from/to other versions of Outlook, or for use by a friend or colleague, click the Options button.
Email rules are another way that Outlook helps you save time and stay organized. You may be hesitant to spend the time to define a rule, but in the long run it will be well worth the effort. Of course, rules are probably not warranted for situations that arise only occasionally, but most people who rely on email in their work—and who doesn't these days—will find plenty of good uses for them.