One Minute Tutorial:  Organize Your Outlook Inbox using Rules

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with e-mails coming into your Inbox. With rules, you can automatically move incoming e-mail to folders based on categories you define, allowing you to focus on only the items that matter to you. You might, for instance, want to move all e-mails sent to a large distribution list to a folder for just that list. Another common use of rules is to redirect all e-mail sent directly to you to a special folder.

Here’s a how to do it, using a very simple distribution list example. Feel free to customize these instructions to fit your needs by making different choices as you go through the wizard.

1.      On the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts.
2.      On the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.
3.      On the first page of the Rules Wizard, click Start creating a rule from a template, click Move messages sent to a distribution list to a folder, then click Next.

4.      In Step 1: Select condition(s), select sent to people or distribution list.
5.      In Step 2: Edit the rule description, click people or distribution list.
6.      In the Rule Address dialog box, click the text box next to the To button and enter the e-mail address of the distribution list, then click OK.

7.      In Step 2: Edit the rule description, click specified.
8.      In the Rules and Alerts explorer window, select the folder where you want to move the e-mails. If the folder doesn’t exist, you can create one by clicking New.

9.      Click OK to close the Rules and Alerts explorer window.
10.     In the Which condition(s) do you want to check page, click Next.
11.     In the What do you want to do with the message page, select Move it to the specified folder, then click Next.
12.     In the Are there any exceptions page, click Next.
13.     In the Finish rule setup page, click Finish.

Congratulations! You’ve just created a rule. Any new e-mails sent to the distribution list will now go to the folder you chose in step 8.