How to Create Rules in Outlook (Windows)

Scope/Platform

Platform: Windows version of Outlook.

Purpose: Guide for creating a rule to automatically move messages from a specific sender to a designated folder.

Intro

This is an article about creating rules in Outlook to automatically move messages from a specific sender to a designated folder. Following these steps ensures important emails are not lost in your inbox.

Who is this for?

This article is for users new to Outlook, or at least new to using Outlook outside of its use case of replying to and sending emails.

Prerequisites

To fully understand this article, you will need some experience with using Outlook and selecting options from dialog boxes.

Accessing the Rules Wizard

Consider the following scenario:
A high value client's emails are getting lost in the shuffle of your inbox, and you need to setup a filter to funnel those emails to an exclusive folder.

To access the Rules Wizard.

1. Open Outlook
2. Go to File in the upper left hand corner
3. Select Rules and Alerts
4. Click New Rule. This will launch the Rules Wizard

Select Conditions

1. In the Rules Wizard, select Move messages from someone to a folder
2. Click Next
3. Check from people or a public group
4. Click Next

Edit the rule description (click on an underlined value)

1. Click on people or public group
2. Select the appropriate email from your address book and click OK
3. Click on specified
4. Select appropriate destination folder.
5. Click Next

Select Action(s) and Select exception(s) (if necessary)

1. Check move it to the specified folder
2. Check stop processing more rules
3. Click Next
4. Review exceptions list. If none apply, click Next

Final Steps

1. Enter a unique name for the rule in the Name field
2. Click on Turn on this rule
3. If needed, click on Run this rule now on messages already in "Inbox"
4. Review summary, and click Finish to run your rule

Closing

You now have an Outlook Rule in place to filter emails to a specific folder. Somethings to keep in mind.

• Order of rules will matter: Outlook processes rules from top to bottom. Rules with Stop processing more rules enabled will stop all other rules after it from applying to the same message.

• Troubleshooting: If a rule is not working, verify the sender's email to confirm it matches. Also confirm other rules do not conflict.