IT Professionals

Working With Rules In Outlook 2007 Part I

Posted by on Jun 26, 2009 | 2 Comments

You can use rules in Outlook for a number of different things. For example, you may create multiple rules to move incoming email into different folders. Rules consist of criteria and tasks. If a message meets the criteria of a rule, such as senders, recipients, and subjects, then Outlook performs a specific task, such as moving messages to a specific folder or deleting messages.

There are numerous ways of creating a rule in Outlook. You can create a rule:

  • From a template or from scratch
  • Based on a message in a folder
  • Based on a message you are composing
  • Based on a name or subject
  • Based on an alert received from a SharePoint site

The steps below describe how to create a rule from scratch. By completing the steps below, any mail from unknown senders will be moved into a separate folder.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts.
  2. Click the New Rule option. Select Start from a blank rule.
  3. Highlight Check message when they arrive and click Next.
  4. From the list of conditions, place a check beside On this machine only. Click Next.
  5. Under the heading What do you want to do with the message, click Move it to the specified folder.
  6. Click Specified in the Rule Description box. Select the folder you want to move the messages to. Click OK. Click Next.
  7. From the list of exceptions, select Except if sender is in specified Address Book.
  8. Click Specified in the Rule Description box. Select the Outlook Address Book, click Add, and click Next.
  9. Type in a name for the rule and click Finish.

Another method of creating a rule is to make a copy of an existing one. For example, if you have a complicated rule with several actions and conditions, you may want to use the same actions and conditions for another situation but choose a different folder to move the message to.

To make a copy of a rule in Outlook 2007:

  1. Open Outlook 2007.
  2. From the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts.
  3. If you have more than one e-mail account, in the Apply changes to this folder list, select the Inbox that you want.
  4. From the list of rules, select the rule that you want to copy.
  5. Click Copy.
  6. Proceed to make any changes you want to the copied rule.

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