Use Rules to manage your e-mail Inbox in MS Outlook

Are you overwhelmed by the number of e-mail messages in your Inbox? Instead of constantly organizing an ever-growing number of messages manually, use the Rules Wizard to help you automatically process and organize your messages. After you use the Rules Wizard to create a rule, Outlook applies it when messages arrive in your Inbox, or when you send a message.

• What is a rule?
  • In Microsoft Outlook, a rule is a set of conditions, actions, and exceptions that processes and organizes messages automatically and that is triggered by an event.
    
    Think of the relationship between the event, condition, action, and exception this way:

    • An event triggers the rule. For example, you can select Check messages when they arrive as the event.

    • A condition specifies the messages that the rule will apply to. For example, you can select sent only to me or where my name is in the Cc box as conditions. You can select one or many conditions. If you do not select any conditions, it is the same as selecting all conditions.

    • An action specifies what should be done with qualifying messages. You can select one, many, or no actions. For example, you can select delete it if you do not want to read messages that have the word "jokes" in the Subject line.

    • An exception specifies which messages will not be affected by the rule. You can select, one, many, or no exceptions. A rule is not applied to a message if any one of the exceptions you specify is met. For example, you can delete all messages with the word "jokes" in the Subject line, except those from your cousin (whose jokes you like).

• What can I use rules for?
  • You can automatically:
    • Move messages to a particular folder based on who sent them.
    • Move certain kinds of messages, such as Out of Office messages, to another folder.
    • Delete messages in a conversation.
    • Flag messages from a particular person.
    • Set up a notification, such as a message or a sound, when important messages arrive.
    • Redirect a message to a person or to a distribution list.
    • Ask the server to automatically reply to a certain type of message by using a message you've created.
    • Assign categories to messages you send based on the contents of the messages.
    • Delay delivery of messages by a specified amount of time.

    • Start a program.

For more in-depth information, refer to the Help Menu within Microsoft Office.