How to Create Email Rules in Microsoft Outlook

You open Microsoft Outlook and click Send/Receive and dozens of emails pours into your InBox. Now you have to scroll through the emails, trying to determine if they are important or not. However it doesn’t have to be such a tedious routine. By creating email rules, Outlook can organize incoming emails and send them to pre-named folders, making it easier to determine which email to read first.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Microsoft Outlook
• Internet access

Instructions

How to Create Email Rules in Microsoft Outlook

1. Open Microsoft Outlook. In the left “Mail” column, click “Inbox”. Then move the cursor to the top toolbar and click “File.” Scroll down and click “Folder” and then “New Rule.” A ‘Create New Folder” box opens. Type the name for the folder and, in the bottom part, highlight where to place the folder. Click OK. Create all the different folders desired using the same method.

2. Click “Send/Receive.” After all the email is received, in the middle “InBox” column, single click to highlight the first email. Do not open the email; just highlight the subject and sender of the email. Then right-click on the email; a menu drops. Scroll down to and click “Create Rule.”

3. A menu box appears that has three sections. The top section is “When I get email with all the selected conditions.” Click which of the three options you want to designate incoming email. It can be one, two or all three conditions. In the “Subject Contains” line, you can also remove any words to make the rule more defined.

4. In the bottom part of the menu box “Do the following,” click “Move email to folder” and click “Select folder.” It will open a box that shows all the Mail folders. Highlight the folder you want the email to be moved to. Click OK.

5. A menu box appears that says, “Success,” with an explanation of the rule created. Click the box “Run this rule now on messages already in the current box.” Click OK. A rule has now been created for the first email. Repeat with all of the emails you want rules created for.

6. Create an instant rule for junk mail by single clicking to highlight the junk email in the InBox column. Then right-click on the email. Scroll down to and click “Junk Email.” A box will open. Click, “Add Sender to Blocked Senders List.”

Tips & Warnings

• Create more than one main folders with sub folders. For example, main folders can be "Personal" or "Business". Under "Personal" you could include "Family" and "Friends" as sub-categories.

Resources

• Why Create Folders?
• Tips for Managing Your Email Using Rules