How to Use Microsoft Outlook 2007: Introduction to Rules
Rules can help you organize and manage your mail in Outlook. Rules enable to set actions that will be performed automatically on e-mail messages you send or receive based on criteria you set.
What Rules Can Do
You can create many different types of rules in Outlook. For example, you can create a rule to:
- Sort and organize your messages
- Discard or filter messages from unknown (or suspicious) e-mail addresses
- Move or copy messages containing certain words in the subject (or from a particular sender) to a specified folder
- Forward mail from a particular person to another person
- Flag messages for follow-up
- Assign a category (i.e., important) to your message
So you can set up Outlook to move messages from company Spam Inc. to your Junk or Trash folder. You can sort legitimate mail as well. Or you can have mail you receive from your manager or professor sent to a folder you designate, such as "Boss Mail" or "Prof Mail".
Setting up Criteria for Your Rule
When you set up a rule, you also set up the criteria, or conditions, on which Outlook will carry out your rule. Outlook will carry out the rule based on the conditions you've set up in your rule. For example, if you set up a rule where you want Outlook to move mail to a "jesuit mail" folder, you can set up a *condition* where a message must have the word "jesuit" in the subject before Outlook will move it to the "jesuit" folder.
A rule can have one or more conditions.
You can also add exceptions to your rules. For example, you can have a rule to move messages you receive from someone to a specific folder *except* if the message contains a specific word or phrase in the Subject line.
After you create your rule, Outlook will apply the rule for messages you send or receive.
Considerations When Using Rules
- Any rules you set up on one computer will not work on another computer unless you create the rule on that computer as well.
- Outlook 2007 rules only work on the computer where you created the rule. The rules will also not work if you access your e-mail with another mail client like Thunderbird, Mac Mail, or other e-mail program.
- You must be logged in to Outlook 2007 (on the computer you created the rule) in order to run the rule.
- Rules will work only in Outlook; they will not work if with Thunderbird, GUWebMail or other e-mail program.
- Make sure you do not create an e-mail loop, which could downgrade e-mail performance.
(In an e-mail loop, mail is forwarded back and forth between two different e-mail accounts. For example, Jane Hoya may set up her mail so that messages are forwared from her jhoya @ georgetown.edu account to her jane.hoya @ gmail.com account; she also has mail from her jane.hoya @ gmail.com account forwarded to her jhoya @ georgetown.edu account. So as one e-mail account receives the messages, it then fowards the messages to the other e-mail account, and vice versa. The messages are passed back and forth between each e-mail account, resulting in a "loop", with no final destination for the messages.)
