Don’t Miss an Important Email Again! How to Use Outlook Rules to Prioritize

Process Automation

Jun 12

When you receive hundreds of emails a day, it’s not hard for an important email to get lost somewhere in the shuffle. By utilizing Outlook rules, however, you can prioritize your email so that you see the most important emails first.

There are a few conditions you may want to use to figure out how you want to prioritize your mail. The most common include:

Sent from
By subject
Sent to
Sent only to me
Where my name is in the To box
Marked as importance
Marked as sensitivity
Flagged for action
Where my name is in the CC box
Where my name is not in the To box
With specific words in the body
With specific words in the message header
With specific words in the sender’s address
Received in a specific date span

Once you’ve decided want criteria you want to use to prioritize your emails, you’ll then add an action to the rule. Some common actions may include:

Move it to the specified folder
Assign it to the _________ category
Move a copy to the specified folder
Have server reply using specific message
Reply using a specific template
Flag message for follow up at this time
Mark it as importance
Play a sound
Display a specific message in the New Item Alert window
Display a Desktop alert
Apply retention policy

Depending on how you want to treat your prioritized emails, you can use flags, notifications, or even unique sounds to ensure that the most important emails are the first to receive your attention. Setting up these rules may take some time at the beginning, but will save time and ensure that urgent matters are taken care of.

To further optimize your email, you may want to consider filtering unwanted emails, automating some of your forwarded emails and replies, and/or organizing emails you want to keep. If you have a unique situation, you may want to consider some of these lesser-known applications.