Microsoft Entourage 2004

Using Rules to Organize Your Email

Using Rules can help you organize your email in Entourage. Rules allow you to set actions that will be performed automatically after receiving a message that meets criteria you set. For example, Entourage can redirect messages with a certain subject line or messages containing a certain word or phrase. Or, messages from a colleague can be automatically forwarded or placed in a special folder. Entourage Rules are flexible and allow you to tailor them to your needs. This document contains information on the following:

Types of Rules
Creating Rules
Enabling and Disabling Rules
Deleting Rules

Types of Rules

Entourage allows you to create many different types of Rules to help automate and organize your email. Once set, these Rules enable Entourage to automatically perform such actions as the following:

Move messages from certain people to a special folder
Redirect messages based on subject
Display an alert message when an important message arrives
Assign a category based on the content of a message
Open or start a program after receiving a certain message
Filter unwanted or junk messages and send them to a special folder
Print messages containing specific words or phrases

Creating Rules

There are many options available to you when creating Rules. The following directions show an example of how you can move messages from a group of people to a specific folder.

From the Tools menu, select Rules
The Rules dialog box appears.
Select the Mail (Exchange) tab
Click NEW
The Edit Rule dialog box appears.
In the Rule name text box, type the desired name of the rule
In the If section, from the Execute pull-down list, select when you would like the rule to be applied
EXAMPLE: Select If any criteria are met.
In the If section, from the Criterion pull-down list, select the first criteria and enter any necessary information
EXAMPLE: To apply the rule to all messages from your manager, select From, select Contains, and type your manager's email address into the text box.
OPTIONAL: To set additional criteria,
1. Click ADD CRITERION
2. Repeat steps 5–6
In the Then section, from the Action pull-down list, select what you would like Entourage to do with messages according to your criteria, and supply any additional information
EXAMPLE: To automatically put messages into a folder called Work, from the Action pull-down list, select Move message, and from the second pull-down list that appears, select Work.
OPTIONAL: To set additional actions,
1. Click ADD ACTION
2. Repeat step 8
Click OK
Close the Rules dialog box

Enabling and Disabling Rules

Once you have created a Rule, you must enable it. If you no longer want to use a Rule, you can easily disable it. The steps listed here toggle a Rule on and off.

From the Tools menu, select Rules
The Rules dialog box appears.
Select the Mail (Exchange) tab
To enable a rule, from the list of Rules, select the checkbox beside the desired Rule
To disable a rule, from the list of Rules, deselect the checkbox beside the desired Rule
NOTE: A checkmark appears in the box when the Rule is enabled.
Close the Rules dialog box

Deleting Rules

When a Rule is no longer needed, it can be deleted.

From the Tools menu, select Rules
The Rules dialog box appears.
Select the Mail (Exchange) tab
From the list of Rules, select the Rule you would like to delete
Click DELETE
OR
Press [del]
A confirmation dialog box appears.
Click DELETE
Close the Rules dialog box