In this lecture, you're going to learn how to work with rules. The outlook rules feature allows you to automatically organize your email messages based upon rules you've defined for incoming and or outgoing messages. This feature helps reduce the amount of manual filing you have to perform. As a note, rules are always turned on and run automatically. I'm going to show you two different ways to create rules, one using the rule wizard, and the other from a blank rule. So for the first option, the rule wizard, I'll show you how to set up a rule for incoming messages or messages that you receive.

So the first thing we need to do is get over to the Manage Rules and alerts. And to do that, we're going to click on the File tab and go to backstage. backstage, we're going to come over and click Manage Rules and alerts. This is going to open up the rules and alerts dialog box and from here we create and manage our rules to create a rule, we will Want to make sure the email Rules tab is selected, and we're going to click new rule. Once we do that the rules wizard is going to open. And from here we can build our rule.

Since we're using the wizard, we're going to start at the top with step one, we're going to select a template. We have multiple options available to us. But we're going to use the first one because we want to move messages that we received from someone to a folder. We'll make sure that's highlighted and then we'll proceed to Step two, where we're going to edit the rule description and click an underline value. Now the rule we're setting up sets, it's going to apply it after the message has arrived from people or public group. Now it's underlined here because we need to select it and tell it from what people are public group.

So we'll click on it. Once we do that, it's going to open up the rule address dialog box. And from here we choose the people or the public groups that it's coming from. Now, mine doesn't come from my address book. It's coming from an external source. So I'm going to type in the address down in the firm area, once I've typed it in, I'll say OK, you'll notice a change the from to the centers email address, that will go on to the next one, move it to the specified folder, we're going to click on specified.

And now we're going to choose the folder we want to put it into. If we don't have the folder set up already, we can create a new one. But I've got mine set up. So I'm going to click on it and say, Okay, once I do that, it now changes the folder to the folder name. At this point, we have two options, we can click next and continue working on a roll, or click Finish if we're finished with it. Let's click Next to see the next available options.

Once we do that, it's going to take us to the conditions we want to check for the rule. Now we've already told it it's from people or a public group, but we can get into even more detail with it. We can tell it that it's a certain importance we can tell it it's flagged for a specific action. It's got specific words in the body or the sub And so forth sweetly, very detailed on how you have your items filed. So for this role, let's go ahead and add one more condition where my name is in the two box. So I only want emails coming from this person that are sent directly to me to be filed into this folder.

And now I've got everything set that I need for the role. So we're going to go ahead and click finish, we come out and look, it's got my rule, and it says, The name of the rule is where my name is in the toolbox. Now, that doesn't really tell you what the rule is. So what I'm going to do is make sure it's highlighted. I'm going to come up here to the change rule and click on the down arrow and rename the rule. Give it a little bit more descriptive name so I know exactly what it's going to do, especially if you're going to be setting up a lot of rules.

I'll say Okay, so now it says it's from veal biz back to me and the action is it's going to move it to a folder. The checkmark means that the rule is going to run If you uncheck it, the rule will not run. Now, once you set up the rule, if you've got emails already in your folder, you can tell it to run the rule now and it'll go through the inbox and run the rule against it. So let's go ahead and run the rule now. We'll select that rule, we're going to run it on the inbox, but we could tell it to run it on different folders if we wanted to, as well. And we'll apply it to all messages ran the rule.

So we'll say okay, let's go back to our inbox. Now I had had a message that came in from fieldbus bach@yahoo.com. We go to our folder, there it is. And there's a lot of other messages that have come in, and it applied the rule to the inbox and moved all of those messages over for me. So setting up rules aren't great. Now that you have it set up and you've run it against your folders.

It's moved everything over and as new messages come in, it'll continue to move them over there. Let's go back into the rules and let's create a rule From a blank for messages that we send. So let's go back to backstage. Go to Manage Rules and alerts. We're going to do another new rule. So we'll make sure we're on the email rules, click new rule.

And this time, we're going to come down to where it says start from a blank rule. We have two options, apply rule on messages I receive or apply rule on messages. I said, this is for messages I sent, so I'm going to highlight that, click Next. And now I'm going to choose exactly how I want this to be set up. These are messages that I'm going to send to a specific person. So I'm going to click that option.

I'll come down to step two and click on people or public group so that I can choose who it is. Now I'm going to come down to two because it's four messages that I'm sending out to a specific person. We'll say OK, click Next. I'm going to tell it to move a copy to a specified folder. Now once I've checked the is going to add it down to my step two. So now I can click on specified and choose the folder.

Let's go ahead and put it into the same folder. say, OK, and finish. When I click finish on this rule, it's a little bit different, it's going to come up with a warning for me, this rule will only run when you check your email in Outlook. If outlook isn't running, this rule won't work for email, you check online or from another device. If I'm sending messages from my phone, it's not going to run the rule against it, because that's on a different app on my phone. So I'm going to tell it ok.

I'm going to come up here and I'm going to change the name of it just like I did before so that it's a little bit more specific. And because of the warning it gave me It's letting me know it's a client only rule. So let's change rule, rename it. Let's go ahead and run the roll now. And because it's messages I've sent I'm going to browse out and have it, run it on my Sent Items. So close, say, Okay, let's go back to our messages, we'll go to our folder.

And here's the message that I sent that it applied the rule to. So now if I do a new email, there's the message in my folder. So rules aren't great to keep you organized. If you're sending messages back and forth with someone, you can keep them all in one place. So you've got all of the information that you could go to quickly. Let's go back into our rules.

So we'll click File, Manage Rules and alerts. We can also copy a rule. So for setting up similar rules for different clients or different email recipients, instead of recreating the rule each time we can highlight the rule, click Copy. say okay Now we could come down here and we could modify the rule. Make sure once you do that if you copy a rule that you turn it on. Anytime you don't want it to run rules, uncheck the box.

Or if you don't need the rule anymore, highlight the rule and click Delete. And you can delete the rule. And that's how you can create rules. Remember, it's always in backstage Manage Rules and alerts. And don't forget once you set up rules to check your folders because those rules will be applied and moving things to your specific folders. So keep an eye on the numbers next to your folders because remember, that tells you how many unread messages you have in that folder.