You can use mail rules to move, forward, or delete new messages you receive that meet certain conditions. For example, you could create a rule that checks for messages from a certain sender or that contain a certain subject and automatically move the messages to a certain folder, send copies of the messages to someone, or delete unwanted messages before you ever see them in your Inbox.
For example, you could select sender and contains , and then type Alice to filter all messages sent to you by Alice French, Alice Stearns, and anyone else named Alice. Or you could select size (in bytes) and is greater than , and then type 2000 to filter all messages sent to you that are greater than 2000 bytes.
Note: The contains condition works on partial words and is not case sensitive. For example, you could select sender and contains , and then type Al or al to filter all messages sent to you by anyone named Al, Alice, Alex, or Alicia.
Tip: The all documents condition lets you perform an action on all messages that arrive in your mail while the rule is enabled. For example, you might select all documents and specify sending a copy to an alternate email address while you are out of the office.
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Add more conditions | Click Condition , select AND or OR , and then repeat steps 3 and 4 for each new condition. |
| Add an exception | Click Exception , and then repeat steps 3 and 4. |
| Add more exceptions | Click Exception, select AND or OR , and then repeat steps 3 and 4 for each new exception. |
| Remove a condition or exception | Click the condition or exception in the When mail messages arrive that meet these conditions field, and then click Remove . |
| Remove all conditions and exceptions | Click Remove All . |
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| send copy to | Select whether you want the forwarded copies to contain the full message, or the message headers only. The headers are the subject, the addresses, and the date and time at the beginning of the message; they don't include the rich-text content of the message. |
Note: If you find that a rule using the send copy to action is not working, ask your system administrator whether this feature has been disabled for your organization.
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Add more actions | Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each new action. |
| Remove an action | Click the action in the Perform the following actions box, and then click Remove . |
| Remove all actions | Click Remove All . |
Rules are processed in the order in which they are listed under Tools > Rules . If you have multiple rules that apply to a single message, then the rules are applied to that message in order. If you only want one of those rules to apply, then use stop processing to stop processing after the first rule.
For example, you could define the following rules:
WHEN Subject contains Marketing THEN Move to folder Marketing Information AND Stop Processing further Rules
WHEN Subject contains Sales THEN Move to folder Sales Information
In this example, if the subject of a message contains Marketing and Sales, the message is moved to the Marketing Information folder, and then all rule processing stops. If the stop processing action is not present, the message is first moved to the Marketing Information folder, and then moved to the Sales Information folder when the second rule runs.
