Manage Email Using Microsoft Outlook Rules


It sounds simple, but is it? Are you doing the right steps? There is a way to manage email using Microsoft Outlook Mail Folders, but it is not always obvious how to do it effectively.

Steps

  1. Identify individuals or groups of people you regularly get email from.
  2. From Outlook Mail, Actions, Rules and Alerts, create new rules for each individual group or person you regularly receive email from and direct these emails to be moved to a specific folder under the Inbox folder.
  3. Determine whether you want to A) be alerted when you receive a special message from this individual or group and/or B) mark it as read immediately. Review the other action options to see whether they can further assist you.
  4. Create new rules for each individual group or person you regularly send email to and direct these emails to be moved as a copy of the email you are sending to a specific folder under the Sent folder.
  5. Based on priority, decide when and in what order you want to stop processing a rule. This is particularly important when working with rules that deal with emails you send -- otherwise you will be saving multiple copies of the same email.
  6. Have one sent rule at the bottom of all of the sent rules with Stop processing. This rule will catch all emails that did not get placed into individual subfolders.
  7. On an ongoing basis, evaluate the Sent emails that go to the Sent folder that do not get moved to another subfolder. The number of messages in the Sent folder can indicate when it is time to create new subcategories of sent email.
  8. On an ongoing basis, evaluate the Inbox emails that go to the Inbox and are not moved into another subcategory. The number of messages in the main Inbox folder can determine when it is time to create new subcategories of received email.



Tips

  • For example, advertising emails may be worth reviewing when they first arrive, but they soon go stale and can be removed. Bank notices and receipts you may want to hold on to longer.
  • The key to managing email using Microsoft Outlook is learning how to create email categories and prioritize your emails -- think of it as pruning and weeding your email garden -- so you can benefit from the flourish of information you have available.
  • You may also want to add other useful fields to your folder's view. Size allows you to see and sort by the size of the message. You may decide to unburden your email folders of larger emails and manage them outside of email (i.e., save important attachments or save an entire email to location outside of Outlook).
  • Need help with spam in Outlook? spambayes. It's quick. It's easy. It's free.
  • Consider changing the properties of folders to show the Total Number of Items rather than the Total Number of Unread Items, particularly, if you are already getting alerts for important new messages being received.
  • For the folders you create for Sent mail, adjust the view (right click on the display/sort bar of the folder, Customize Current View, Fields, etc) to remove the From and Received and add the To and Sent field.
  • Once the Sent and Received emails are categorized, it is easier to see where "email growth" is coming from and decide where to prune and create new branches.

Warnings

  • When the number of messages in a folder approaches a certain number (50? 100? 200?), it is time to evaluate weeding, pruning, sub-categorizing your emails in that folder.
  • You should make your home version of Outlook your test case for creating Outlook email rules before you make changes to your work version of Outlook (or vice versa, depending on which you care about more).

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  • Manage Email Effectively
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