Setting up Message Rules

If you receive about 50-100 emails a day and half of them are junk email this might be for you. Believe it or not some people don’t like to receive emails with x-rated material or Viagra ads. If you are using mail client Outlook Express you can setup Message Rules to separate out the good stuff from the bad. Not only can you do this but you can do so much more with Message Rules like; color code emails, automatic forwarding, and whitelisting. These will be covered later in future tech tips. You can have the message rules set up to check for certain subject lines, e-mail addresses, or even words.

Here are the steps:

  1. Open Outlook Express. Click the Tools menu, Message Rules, Mail…
  2. On the screen that pops up, click the New button (for newer versions of Outlook Express, you don't have to hit the New button - the screen you need pops up automatically).
  3. At this point, there should be a screen that lets you set up your rules. Check the options you want to filter. Example: I am getting emails that have “badword” in the subject of the message. So under 1: Select the Conditions for your rule: I have Where the Subject line contains specific words box checked. When you do this you should see Where the Subject line contains specific words show up in box 3: Rule Description
  4. The next step is to tell Outlook Express what it should do with the email. From here you can do so many different things. For my example I will check Delete it for 2: Select the Action for your rule: You should see Delete it shows up in the 3: Rule Description box.
  5. The next step is to make all of it work together. In the 3: Rule Description box you will be able to click on any of the blue underline words. This will bring up a box that you can enter the “words” that you want the Message Rules to catch. For my example I entered badword. You can enter as many words as you want. I do have to warn you watch what words you use. For example, if you use the word “baby” you might get an email from your sister with the Subject Title: “Baby Pictures” that would be blocked and deleted. There is even an Options buttonif you want to do more advanced things.
  6. The last step is to give it a name and click OK. This will bring you back to the Message Rules box where you should now see your new message rule that you just created. Click Apply Now twice, click Close and OK.