Exchange 2003 and older supports just 32 KB worth of rules. If each rule is small and simple, you might get about 50 – 70 rules when using Outlook 2002 and older. Outlook 2003 (and up) uses Unicode when writing the rules and this requires more space per rule, leaving most users with about 20 rules.
In Outlook 2000, you could force rules to be client rules, which are stored in Outlook. This would allow you to have many more rules. This does not work in Outlook 2002 and 2003 (and up) – all rules, both client and server, are stored on the Exchange server and subject to the 32 KB size limit.
In Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013 and Office365, the limit is higher – 64KB by default and configurable up to 256KB. This change will allow in the neighborhood of 100 rules, or about 90 more than I want to manage in the Rules dialog.
If you use Exchange 2007/2010 and need more space for rules, speak with your administrator and ask him to raise the limit. If you’re an admin and don’t know how to change the rules, use the following cmdlet in the Exchange management shell to raise the limit to 256KB.
Set-Mailbox username -RulesQuota:256KB
See Set-Mailbox cmdlet (TechNet) for more information
See the tools listed below to overcome this limitation and for better rules handling.
| Tools in the Spotlight | |
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This add-in for Outlook organizes the email in your inbox by automatically moving it to folders you designate. Similar to our Sent Items Organizer, you can have the add-in automatically move the email to folders that you create based on who it's from, keywords in the subject or body, or you can have it prompt you for the folder each time it doesn't know how to handle the email. It also comes with a facility to back propagate through all your old emails and file them accordingly. Enter code WD9BHK53 during checkout. | |
| Tools | |
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CodeTwo Exchange Rules software enables easy and central defining of disclaimers added to all e-mails sent via Microsoft Exchange server. Use Exchange Rules to add different disclaimers depending on a message sender's address or domain to e-mails, to add personalized disclaimers containing sender's data available in the Active Directory database to e-mails. New features include extended rule criteria to select the most appropriate footers for messages. Built-in signature editor to help create footers, contains an Email archiving and a statistics module. Insert multiple footers to messages. Free trial. Exchange 2000/2003 only. Version 3.1 | |
eMail Manager is an addin designed for Outlook 2007 or 2010 to assist the user in filing / archiving and retrieving emails in a consistent and efficient way. Messages are either saved in Outlook / Exchange folders or as MSG files in the file system. The file message dialog presents you with a list of recent save locations and a range of options for dealing with attachments. As mail is sent eMail Manager pops up a dialog prompting you to save or delete the sent message. Messages saved into the file system are consistently named with a configurable filename format. | |
InboxRULES engine is an add-in for MS Outlook for processing incoming and outgoing messages. It calls Ornic actions after message arrives or is sent if the defined conditions is matched. | |
InboxRULES for Outlook ("InboxRULES CE") is an add-in for MS Outlook for processing incoming and outgoing messages. The message is processed when it arrives to MS Outlook or after it is sent. If the message matches defined restrictions (Boolean expression support) InboxRULES CE calls our actions. InboxRULES for Outlook is a client side engine which requires MS Outlook to run to process messages. Now supports Outlook 2013 and Windows 8. | |
MAPILab Rules for Exchange is a program for creating and managing Exchange Server and Small Business Server 2000/2003 server-side rules for the processing of incoming messages. It offers more flexibility and functionality than server-side rules created in Outlook. It supports all types of messages. Version 2.2 | |
Mail organiser for Outlook to replace the built-in Rules Wizard. Offers unlimited rule capacity (only limited by your computer hardware), quick folder find, attachment renaming, and Bayesian antispam mail filtering. | |


