Creating Email Rules in Outlook

Athena Strategies
Jul 13, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Jul 19, 2020

Email rules are all about automation and saving you time. As soon as an email hits your inbox, rules can help by sending emails to folders automatically, marking emails by category or importance, forwarding emails to your team, and more. They're a versatile and important set of tools.

These rules can help tame the "inbox beast" and keep you organized so you're never overwhelmed by your inbox again.

Athena Strategies can work with you to develop a specified set of rules based on your individual mailbox and needs. We'll analyze where your inbox is getting bogged down and create a custom solution for you!

In this article, we'll go over the basics of how to set up email rules in Outlook.

Getting Started

To access your rules, click "Rules", then "Manage Rules & Alerts."

If you don't see the Rules tab in Outlook, press the chevron all the way on the right to expand your top tab.

Here's the Rules page. To make a new rule, select "New Rule."

This will take us to the Rules Wizard. You have several options to start with - don't worry, this can be adjusted later. Just choose the one closest to what you want to do.

Think of rules as a form of logic:

"If this, then that."

"If you get an email meeting these conditions, then do this with that email."

Or more specifically, an example is "If you get an email from Bob Jones, then move that email to the 'Emails from Bob' folder."

Part 1 of the Rules Wizard:

Choose the "If"

In Step 1, you're selecting what conditions an email needs to meet before the rule applies.

You can choose a sender, words in a subject line or body, and more. Your options are listed under "Step 1: Select condition(s)"

Most often, we'll use:

• From "people or public group"

• With "specific words" in the sender's address

For example, here you'd choose "from people or public group" and select Bob Jones - now, the rule will apply to all emails from Bob Jones.

Note that if you select multiple conditions, all conditions that you list must be met for the rule to activate. If you select "from people or public group" and "where my name is in the Cc box," then email will follow the rule only if they meet both the criteria.

Step 2 is to edit the rule description. To do so, click on the blue underlined text in the Step 2 box (marked with red arrows here) and complete the prompt.

When you've selected your conditions, click next.

Part 2 of the Rules Wizard:

Choose the "Then"

In Step 1, you're choosing what to do with the emails that you've specified.

Most often, we'll use:

• Move it to the "specified" folder

• Assign it to the "category" category

• Reply using a "specific template"

• Mark it as "importance"

Recommended: check the "stop processing more rules" box at the top

If "stop processing more rules" is not selected, other rules may be applied to the email, leaving you uncertain exactly what end action has happened.

Click "Next."

Part 3 of the Rules Wizard:

Make an exception

The logic becomes

"If this, then that,

except when…"

Exceptions are optional.

Handy exceptions to use might be:

• Except if it is marked as "importance"

• Except if it is flagged for action

Click "Next."

Part 4 - Completion

You're almost done! Name your rule.

You can choose in Step 2 whether to "run this rule now on messages already in 'Inbox'."

If you don't check this box, the rule will only apply to new messages and not to ones you've already received.

You'll probably want to check "Turn on this rule," unless you're not ready to do so.

Click "Finish."

Using email rules, you can create an inbox that's easy to get to zero each day by taking care of low importance emails automatically.

Athena Strategies

is here to help!