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Custom Actions for Outlook's Rules

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› Tools & Utilities › Automatic Processing Tools › Custom Actions for Outlook’s Rules

Last reviewed on October 13, 2018     117 Comments

This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant.

Custom actions add functionality to the Rules Wizard in Microsoft Outlook by performing additional actions on messages.

There are very few custom actions available (in part because they were written in C++). For this reason, we are including other useful "rules tools" here.

See Run a Script rules for an alternative to Custom Actions.

Notes

Adding a custom action to a rule automatically makes it a client-side rule that can execute only when Outlook is running.

Custom Actions for Outlook's Rules was last modified: October 13th, 2018 by Diane Poremsky

Related Posts:

  • Outlook's Rules and Alerts: Run a Script
  • Running Rules on messages after you read them
  • Frequently asked question about Outlook's rules wizard.
    Outlook Rules Frequently Asked Questions
  • Direct support for this kind of rule was added in Outlook 2000 and is
    Create a rule to search for two different phrases in a message

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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Radha
October 12, 2018 12:05 pm

I need to create a custom action rule in Outlook when I blind copy (not just Cc) an email address on all outgoing emails. There is no action rule set for blind copy. Thank you.

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Radha
October 13, 2018 1:03 am

You wont use a custom action - that is basically dead technology. If you can use a script, I have a macro that will add it. Or you can use a 3rd party addin.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/automatically-bcc-all-message/

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John
March 24, 2017 8:25 am

I am looking to create a rule to forward emails to our production software. Our software recognizes email addresses and automatically files these to the correct account. When I forward from my email I need to add in the subject line FROM:JANEDOE@JOHN.COM Is there a way to achieve this?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  John
March 24, 2017 9:14 am

Not using any native rules feature, but you can do it using a run a script rule. See https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/run-script-rule-change-subject-message/

in the first macro, add
Set myForward = Item.Forward
myforward.subject = "FROM:JANEDOE@JOHN.COM " & item.subject
myForward.Recipients.Add "alias@domain.com

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Gayatri
December 28, 2016 1:43 pm

Hey... I have to apply almost 1000 rules to emails in my shared outlook inbox. Please help me understand how this can be done?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Gayatri
December 30, 2016 1:13 am

It would probably be easier to open the mailbox in a profile (as an account) then create server side rules - they will run as mail arrives. Client side rules will not work in a mailbox opened as a shared mailbox - you'd need to run them manually or open the mailbox as an account.
https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/create-rules-and-oof-shared-mailbox/

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Stella T
June 28, 2016 7:58 am

I have several projects that I work on. I have made project folders and run a move the projects to their appropriate outlook 2010 email folders as they come in but is there a way that I can "forward" a copy of specific messages when they come in that contain certain criteria to another email address for my assistant to follow up?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Stella T
June 28, 2016 11:35 pm

You can use Outlook's rules to forward mail based on conditions or if you need more complicated conditions, a run a script rule.

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DAn Reese
June 15, 2016 12:26 pm

I always miss when my people send me timesheets for approval. I wrote a BAT command to open the payroll website, but when building a custom rule, I cant attach the BAT command to the RUN A SCRIPT or CUSTOM ACTION. I have the BAT command, I dont have the place to insert the BAT command. Where does that go?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  DAn Reese
June 15, 2016 2:07 pm

This works here -
Public Sub OpenBat(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
Shell ("D:\Documents\test.bat"), vbNormalFocus
End Sub

You used to be able to run bat files using run application and choosing the bat. That is not working for me, but the rule didn't work at first, so maybe it was just user error.

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Peter
May 28, 2016 7:13 am

Hello,

I tried to implement the "MarkRead" Custom Action in my Outlook 2007, despite several attempts without success.
I need this action, because I set up the rule Sent Items -> save copy to , but the selected folder is bolded, since the saved sent mail cannot be set as read. Selecting a custom action, following the would solve the problem.
I appearently fixed some errors, after an initial attempt failed, because the markread.reg file is written like this:
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Custom Actions]
"Mark Read"="4.0;c:\\exchange\\markread.dll;1"

The double slashes are wrong. If this reg file is executed, the value will appear in the registry with triple slashes. Even with one slash, double slashes will appear, so the registry has to be manually corrected. I this usual?
But even though I corrected this, also doubling the key to key ...\client as well as to ...client\Custom Actions, I still cannot select this custom action in Outlook, the field ist still empty. Files are found in c:\exchange.
There a many VBA scripts availabe, but cannot get them to run as well, also they work as macros, which have to be executed manually.

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Peter
June 19, 2016 12:58 am

I thought 2007 had the mark as read rule action... but if not, i'd use a run a script rule over the custom action.

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Brad
May 1, 2016 4:57 am

How can I add a customized action to open up a previously-sent email in order to resend it with different information? Much appreciated!!

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Brad
May 1, 2016 4:31 pm

custom action won't do it. Should be able to do it using VBA. Did you want to trigger it using a rule or just by clicking a button on the ribbon?

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Brad
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
May 2, 2016 1:51 am

Just by clicking a button on the ribbon, thanks a lot!

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Brad
May 2, 2016 5:51 pm

See https://www.slipstick.com/developer/code-samples/macro-resend-message/

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Beth
April 21, 2016 4:47 pm

I want to save sent mail to the sent folder and mark it read. I have everything in the rule except "mark it read." My rules don't include this choice, as best I can tell, and I can't add that rule as a custom rule; I can't add anything at all as custom rule, whether I am using Gmail or Verizon accounts, even if I do everything that HELP says to do.

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Beth
May 2, 2016 11:35 am

You need to use a script in the rule or watch the folder and mark it read after moving. See this macro -
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/mark-items-read/

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