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About this lesson

Set up rules that perform time-saving tasks, for instance filing certain emails automatically into certain folders.

Exercise files

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Rules and Alerts.docx
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Quick reference

Rules and Alerts

Rules will automate email chores, such as auto-filing certain emails into folders.

When to use

When you find yourself repetitively moving emails into folders, set up a Rule to do the work for you. 

Instructions

  1. Create a Rule in your Inbox:
    On the HOME ribbon,
    Click Rules, Create Rule:               

    OR Right Click an Email and click Rules:
              
  1. Select the conditions for your rule:
    1. There are 2 sections in the dialog box, you must make a choice in both areas
    2. If choosing to Move the item, you must click the SELECT FOLDER button as shown below:
  1. Your existing Inbox and folder list appears, make your selection.
  1. Run the Rule: You will have the option to activate the rule immediately. It is your choice and a good idea to make sure it works:

To view all possible Rule options:

  1. On the HOME ribbon, , or Right click an email
     
    1. Click Rules, Manage Rules and Alerts:
    2. Click New Rule and make your selections:

Mark Email as JUNK
Right Click an Email and click JUNK:

  • 00:04 In this lesson, I wanna show you how rules work.
  • 00:07 Now I'm on my Home ribbon of my inbox and
  • 00:09 I have an option over here that says rules.
  • 00:12 And when I click that, it gives me a suggestion of a rule or
  • 00:15 I can create a new one, or manage existing ones.
  • 00:18 I'm gonna go ahead and create a new rule So
  • 00:20 I get this dialogue box with these tiny little squares over on the left.
  • 00:24 And whenever you have squares, you can have as many as you want in here.
  • 00:27 But be careful, if you check them all, you'll probably corrupt the rules.
  • 00:30 It'll get too confusing.
  • 00:31 If these were little circles here, I could only have one, but when they're squares,
  • 00:34 I can click as many as I want.
  • 00:36 So I'm just going to tell it, any time where the subject contains the word Trip,
  • 00:41 okay, so any email with the word trip.
  • 00:43 So that's the top section, you can see the soft gray outline,
  • 00:46 there's two sections here.
  • 00:48 What do you want it to do?
  • 00:49 Well I want it to the following.
  • 00:50 Do I want it to display an a new item alert?
  • 00:52 Do I want it play a selected sound?
  • 00:55 Do I wanna move it?
  • 00:56 Yes, to another folder.
  • 00:57 So I'm gonna click that one and tell it Select folder.
  • 01:01 Well, now on my in box, I would choose my travel folder.
  • 01:05 I'm gonna hit okay and hit okay again.
  • 01:07 But it's not gonna do it automatically.
  • 01:09 It asks me one more time.
  • 01:10 Do you want to run this rule now?
  • 01:12 Well, yes.
  • 01:13 So, what's gonna happen is, I've got,
  • 01:15 if you look in the bottom left hand corner of my in box, it says items 28.
  • 01:18 I'm gonna go ahead and run this rule.
  • 01:21 Click OK, and now look at the bottom left hand corner of my inbox.
  • 01:24 It says items 25.
  • 01:25 That means three items left my inbox.
  • 01:29 They're probably in my travel folder, and sure enough, there they are.
  • 01:32 Three items right there in my travel folder because I applied the rule,
  • 01:35 anything with the word trip automatically file.
  • 01:39 It's a wonderful thing so now whenever I get new emails with the word trip in
  • 01:42 the subject or from a certain person, they're gonna autofile.
  • 01:46 It's a great feature.
  • 01:47 All right. Another item up here on rules
  • 01:50 is Manage Rules and alert so maybe I want to get rid of that rule.
  • 01:54 I can click it and I can actually hit delete and it will go away and
  • 01:57 quit running and that's fine as well.
  • 01:59 So I hit okay.
  • 02:00 And now we have another item.
  • 02:02 I can right click on rules.
  • 02:05 Let's see right click here and on rules I have a manage rules and
  • 02:10 alerts, and I can tell it brand new rule.
  • 02:13 Now look at this list.
  • 02:15 It's completely different from the other box cuz it's actually in more detail.
  • 02:19 You can actually get very detailed about what you want to see.
  • 02:23 It's awesome to run through this just to see what the items are.
  • 02:27 Play a sound when I get a message from someone.
  • 02:29 I once had a gentleman in class who received a message and
  • 02:32 a wedding march started playing.
  • 02:34 His fiance had set it up and he didn't know how to turn it off.
  • 02:37 I told him, I didn't know how either.
  • 02:39 Mm.
  • 02:40 It was hilarious, I was so proud of her.
  • 02:42 Alright, and so we can apply rules to messages you receive or
  • 02:45 messages in this inbox, that's awesome.
  • 02:47 Okay but there's one more item that actually is a rule that you might not
  • 02:50 think about, and it is The right-click on an email, the junk.
  • 02:55 This is how you set up a junk items rule.
  • 02:58 So again, I can choose junk.
  • 02:59 I can block the sender, never block the sender,
  • 03:01 block their domain, their mailing group, junk email options.
  • 03:05 So if you block the sender,
  • 03:06 from now on it will go right to the delete item, your delete file.
  • 03:11 So just so you know, that's how you tag junk in your inbox and get rid of it,
  • 03:14 it's simply a rule.
  • 03:16 All right, I hope that helps you and I hope you use the rules.
  • 03:18 They are absolutely wonderful for staying organized.

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