How to Create Message Rules in Outlook Express

These days, our inboxes are flooded with more and more email. Message rules provide a great way to streamline your inbox. By defining simple criteria, you can dictate what you want Outlook Express to do with your mail depending on who sent it, size, attachments or content. Using message rules, you can automatically sort your mail, filter out spam and turn on instant forwarding to individuals or groups.

Instructions

1. Create a new rule. Click "Tools>Message Rules>Mail." Select the "Mail Rules" tab and click "New."

2. Enter the conditions of your rule in the "Conditions" section. This is the criteria that Outlook Express will use when it evaluates incoming mail. For instance, if you want to sort all emails from your family into a specific folder, click "Where the from line contains people."

3. Select what you want Outlook Express to do with the mail in the "Actions" section. For this example, select "Move it to the specified folder."

4. Define the specifics of your rule. To do this, click on the highlighted terms in the "Rule Description" box. Click on "contains people." Enter the email addresses of your family members whose mail you want to be automatically sorted. Click "OK." Next, select where you want to mail to be sorted to. Click on the words "specified folder." Choose the folder and click "OK."

5. Click "OK" to save your new message rule.

Tips & Warnings

• Other common actions include "Delete" for spam or unwanted mail, and "Forward it to people," which forwards mail to email addresses of your choice.

References

• Microsoft: Communicate with Outlook Express 6 in Windows XP