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Rule Lesson:
Create Custom Rules
Continue to deal with remaining Inbox messages...
Now that we have moved out all of your mailing list mail from the Inbox, you should be left with good mail and junk messages.
- If it's junk, click on the Junk icon in the toolbar. This moves the message to the Junk Folder.
- Now to the work of creating your custom rules.
Select the first message in your InBox. Can this message be sorted by a category like Work, Buddy, Family, Announcements, Newsletters? If yes, then assign a category to the contact and set a custom rule. Open Rules under Tools in the Menu bar. Select New. Here is an example of using a category in a rule. Remember Entourage uses a selected message to help fill in criteria.
- Look through other email in the Inbox and see if there are other emails there from Buddies. Assign categories to these contacts if you haven't already assigned in your Address Book and run "All Rules". This will move all buddy mail from your Inbox. (A contact can have multiple categories)
In the Inbox select All Messages and use the contextual menu (hold Control key down) and select Apply Rules"--> All Rules. This will move out all messages for any MLM rule or custom rule you have created. - Take the next message, create a rule. Can you assign this to a category, or do you need a specialized rule?
- Personally, I leave very little mail sent to my Inbox. I prefer to use folders, subfolders and/or custom views. For example, you could move all your work email to the Work Folder, then use a custom view to manage the contents. This gives you even more flexibility to sort your mail. A custom view could sort by a project or be more general and sort by a specific sender.
Not only is all my buddy mail moved to my buddy folder, I'm alerted by a custom sound that says "buddy." Optional Example of how to set rule to play a custom sound
Use categories instead of entering individual addresses; you then have less criteria, making the rule run faster, as well as easing the ability to add new addresses . Otherwise each time your buddy gets a new email address you have to open the rule to add the address.
Assign a category with a keyboard shortcut
Some custom rules you might want:
- Remove incoming attachments with one of the "remove attachment" scripts. They will save, remove and link the saved files to the message, so you can open the file directly from the message.
- You can also remove your outgoing attachments with a rule. This is assuming your outgoing attachments are stored elsewhere on your computer. No need to have them duplicated and filling up your database. See example rule.
- I suggest that you create a rule for Junk Mail where "From is Me". This catches the real spam where it appears the mail is from you and not mail you send yourself. I like the first example. I haven't met a spammer yet that uses Entourage for a sending client. Junk Mail where "From is Me"
- Creating a rule if message contains a specific subject. I get a lot of mail from people not in my Address Book asking for Entourage help. I instruct them to put "newsgroup response" as a prefix. My rule will catch the message and it won't get lost in the junk folder.
- Rule to view all Inboxes in one folder.
- See other examples to help get you started here.
- How to troubleshoot your rules
