How to Automatically Organize Incoming Emails

Well underrated might not be the right term, maybe overlooked is better suited. Microsoft Outlook has a great option and that is the ability for creating rules to manage your e-mail.


I’m going to take my mailbox as an example; I have many email addresses coming in to my Unread Mailbox that I need to organize in many different mail folders like the mailboxes of my customers, my friends but also per mail account and per website.


If I need to manually file each individual incoming email than this would take up a lot of time and Outlook is all about organizing your workflow.


I’ll show you in today’s Tip and Trick how you can apply a basic rule for having the email from a specific friend, coworker or relation automatically filed in a specific folder.


How to automatically organize incoming emails.


In today’s Tip and Trick I’ll show the simplest way.


Open the email that you received from the person that you want automatically handled.


In this case I have an email opened that I received from Google Alert and I receive about 10 – 15 emails like these per day.


It would hold me back in my productivity if I need to drag or move all these items from my normal inbox to my archive folder. It will not only delay my productivity but it is also very annoying. I can hear you say that 10 or 15 isn’t that much but if you think about it, moving 75 emails per week and about 300 emails per month is just mad, I believe you would agree with that.


Okay let’s continue by clicking the Create Rule button.


In this case I choose the From option because the subject will change with the other incoming emails and the bottom option is the “Move the item to folder” but I would recommend not to use this. I almost always use the advanced button because when you use this option it is much easier to follow what your rule really is.


When you click on Google Alert in the bottom window you have the option to select a sender from your address book.


Then click next.


And in this screen you can do the same when clicking on Google Alert only now you can choose the correct archive folder.


Also be sure which option you checkmark; if you choose move a copy the email remains in your inbox.


Then click Next and in the following screen you also have the ability to checkmark the option “Run this rule now on messages already in “Inbox/Unread”.


And that’s it; this is a great way to optimize your workflow and I hope you enjoyed this Tip and Trick.