Using Rules to Manage Email

You can create rules to automatically move certain types of messages to specific folders or to perform other actions based on certain conditions or characteristics. Outlook has rule templates to simplify the process. 

Practice: Creating a Rule to Move Mail to a Folder

  1. Click the Inbox and go to Tools>Rules and Alerts to open the dialog box.

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  2. Click the NEW Rule icon Outlook image to create a new rule for mail filtering.  The first checkbox is already selected, “Start creating a rule from a template.” 

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  3. Select the template to “Move messages from someone to a folder”  and then click Next.
  4. Under “Which condition(s) do you want to check?”, select “from peope or distribution list.”

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  5. Step 2 is to "Edit the rule description" by clicking on an underlined value. Click on people or distribution list.  The following box appears.

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    Select the address list and type in the name of the person. Click on the From button and then click on OK.
  6. Click on Next to go to the next step where you indicate “What you want to do with the message” from this person .  Select “move it to the specified folder.”

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  7. In the rule description box, click on specified to identify the folder you want this mail to be moved to when it arrives.  Clicking on this link opens the following box with your folder list.  Select the folder to contain the filtered mail (you might need to expand the Inbox folder by clicking on the plus sign beside it if you want to select a subfolder). Click OK.

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    If you don’t have a folder where you want the filtered mail to go, you can create a New folder by clicking on the New button.
  8. Click Next to go to the next step in the Wizard where you can identify any exceptions.

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    Then go on to the next step where you type in a name for the rule (see below). Check “Turn on this rule” and any of the other options to “Run this rule now on messages already in ‘Inbox’” and to “Create this rule on all accounts” if you have more than one e-mail account set up in Outlook.  Then click Finish.

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  9. You then return to the Rules Wizard box showing all current rules. Uncheck those rules you do not want to run anymore. Also, determine the order that the rules are applied (the first in the list is applied first; the second is applied next, etc.). To change the order, click on a rule and then click the up or down arrows to move a rule up or down in the list.

    10. To modify a rule, click on a rule and then click “Change Rule.” Click on a rule and click “Delete” to delete any rules no longer needed.  To run selected rules immediately, click on “Run Rules Now” and select the rules to run from the list.  Then click OK to turn on your new rule. 

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