Outlook Rules OK

Although email is a phenomenally efficient means of communication, I often see the downside in the form of inboxes stuffed with hundreds of unattended messages.

For Microsoft Outlook users, there are a number of tools available to lighten the load by automating the process of organising your work.

Specifically, this article is an easy guide to organising your incoming messages into folders which will greatly simplify the work of dealing with them—you can file messages by the name of the originator, the subject area or any other convenient grouping that you might use with a physical filing cabinet.

Folders

The first step is to create a system of folders which should, ideally, be sub-folders of your Inbox.

You can also create sub-folders of the newly-created folders, if you wish.

You can place folders elsewhere in the Outlook file structure but (take my word for it) this is likely to cause problems if you ever need to transfer the data to a new computer using facilities like 'Windows Easy Transfer' or PC-Mover.

If you can't see the Folder List at this point, just check that your Navigation Pane is showing:

In Outlook 2003, from top menu, View / Navigation Pane (you should end-up with the last item ticked)

In Outlook 2007, from top menu, View / Navigation Pane / Normal (you should end-up with the last item ticked)

If you still can't see a folder list, click the 'Mail' or 'Folder List' button, if present.

In my opinion, most Microsoft software is a bit too configurable for it's own good and there is a drop-down menu for further configuration, if needed, at the bottom of the Navigation Pane.

1. On the displayed list of folders, place the cursor on the Inbox folder, right-click and select 'New Folder'
    
2. In the displayed dialogue box, type the name of the new folder, click 'OK' to complete
    
3. Repeat this process for each new folder you wish to create—if you want to create subfolders of folders that you have previously created, just start from the previously-created folder rather than the inbox

If you want to change the name of a folder, place the cursor on it, right-click and select 'Rename'—you can type in the new name directly.

If you do manage to place folders in the wrong part of the structure (easily done), you can relocate them by 'dragging and dropping' or you can delete them by right-clicking on the unwanted folder and selecting 'Delete'.

For those unfamiliar with 'drag and drop', you place the cursor on the folder or message to be moved, hold-down the left button (unless you have re-configured the mouse to work the other way round), move the cursor to the new location and release the button.

Outlook Rules

At this stage, you could simply 'drag and drop' the email messages, moving them from the inbox to the relevant folders.

However, it is much easier to automate this process and deal with the messages after they have been moved.

This is done by creating Outlook rules for the messages currently in the Inbox:

1. From the Inbox message list, place the cursor on an individual message, right-click and select 'Create Rule'
    
2. On the 'Create Rule' dialogue box, click on one or more of the first three boxes which define the basis on which the messages are filtered
    
   The first box will have picked-up the sender's identity as they have defined it in their email settings—easy to work with if it says, for example, 'Joe Bloggs' but less so if it says something like 'Admin'
   
   The second box will have captured the subject of the email—if, for example, the subject said "Good News from British Telecom", you could edit out the surplus words so that any emails with the words 'British Telecom' in the subject would be filtered
   
   Note that an email might be caught by more than one rule. 
   
   The third box relates to where the message has been sent—for example, you might receive emails sent to bill@mydomain.com or accounts@mydomain.com so the message could be filtered on either of these
    
3. The next group of three boxes is about the action to be taken on the filtered email
   
   As this article is primarily about organising mail into folders, we would click on the 'Move Item to Folder' box and then browse for the relevant folder using the 'Select Folder' button
   
   You could actually create any new folders at this point but, to start with, it is easier to create the folders before creating the rules
   
   A number of additional filtering rules and actions are available by clicking the 'Advanced Options' button on the 'Create Rule' dialogue box
    
4. Returning to the 'Create Rule' dialogue box, click the OK button and accept the invitation (tick the box) to run the rule over the current folder—this will take the relevant action on any existing messages matching the rule
   
   Also, the rule will be applied to any new messages arriving in the Inbox

As these rules are put in place, all mail arriving at the inbox will be diverted to the relevant folders—any remaining messages may be discarded or additional rules created.

Outlook Express has a similar system for creating rules as does Windows Mail which replaces OE in Windows Vista.

Junk Mail

Outlook has a fairly efficient Junk email filter which moves any obvious rubbish to a 'Junk' folder though it doesn't catch everything and occasionally captures items which should be retained.

A quick glance through the message headings will identify which items should be discarded and you can create new rules for those which should not.

'Outlook Express' does not have a junk filter though 'Windows Mail' does.

Unread Mail      

Alongside each folder name, there is a number in brackets showing the number of 'unread' messages, which indicates which folders are in need of attention.

Somewhere near the bottom of the 'folders list', you will find a section called 'Search Folders'  which are not actual folders but provide an alternative view of messages contained in other folders.

One of these is called 'Unread Mail' and shows a complete list of unread mail irrespective of which folder it is in.

Back to that Outlook configuration stuff again—if 'Unread Mail' is not on your list of search folders, right-click on the words 'Search Folders', select 'New Search Folder' and then select 'Unread Mail' from the list.

Once the 'unread mail' folder appears in the 'Search Folders' list, you can right-click it and select 'Add to Favourites Folders' which will display it at the top of your folders list.

You can also display any other 'priority' folders in your Favourite Folders list.

Back to the Inbox

While you are sorting out your rules, it might speed-up your work to use the headings at the top of the email list.

For example, if you click on 'Received', the email will be listed in date order—one click will put it into ascending order and another will put it into descending order.

You can use the other column headings to group the emails by subject, sender or any other which is available.

Columns may may be added or removed from this email list by right-clicking the heading bar to see the full configuration options.—you can do the same in any other mail folder.