 |
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 end up in your Inbox.
Here are the steps for creating mail rules:
-
In Outlook, click on one of the folders in your e-mail account so that it is highlighted.
-
From the Outlook menu bar, choose Tools and then choose Rules Wizard (if you don't see the Rules Wizard option, click on the down arrow at the bottom of the Tools menu to display all of the menu items).
-
The Rules Wizard window will appear. At the top of the window is displayed the Inbox of your current e-mail account. If you have more than one e-mail account, click on the drop-down arrow and change the setting to display the e-mail account you want to create the mail rule for.
-
Click on the New button to create a new rule.
-
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. 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, so the template Move new messages from someone is selected.
-
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.
-
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 that you want the rule to apply to. 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 you want the rule to apply to and hit the From button to choose them.
-
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.
-
A new window will appear that lists your available mail folders so you can select which folder messages from your contact person will be moved to. You can either select an existing folder or create a new folder using the New button. Once you have selected the folder, click the OK button.
-
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.
-
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 button and repeating the process. After you have a number of rules, you can change the order in which the rules are applied (as it is possible for an e-mail to meet the criteria for more than one rule). Once you are done, click the OK button.
-
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).
-
To learn more about mail rules, click on Help in the menu bar and choose Microsoft 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.
|
