We frequently get questions from users who want to run their rules automatically after reading the messages. Outlook does not support this - Rules Wizard processes the messages as they are downloaded into Outlook or when you press the Run Rules Now button in Rules Wizard.
In additional to using the tools listed on this page, you can also use a VBA macro to move messages later. See Use a Macro to Move Aged Email for more details and a sample macro.
The tools on this page will either run rules after some time has passed or provide easier methods to file messages.
Tools in the Spotlight
File emails from Outlook into project or client folders automatically. Match email addresses, project numbers, client names or references to a folder name located anywhere on your network. Watch as the bulk of your emails are automatically filed (ZERO clicks!) and finish the task with manual filing for emails that do not fall within the scope of a project or client folder. Organize filed emails into relevant sub-folders within your mailbox and auto purge dated email over time. Supports Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013 & 2016 |
Tools
Auto-Mate is an Outlook utility that allows you use define rules to move mail from your Inbox (or other folders) based on several criteria, including the age of the message. While Outlook rules only run as messages are downloaded or when you click Run Rules now, Auto-Mate rules run on a schedule, enabling you to apply rules to messages that have been in your Inbox for a given number of hours, days or weeks. Available in Standard or Pro Version. Outlook O365, Outlook 2019 as well as Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016, 32 and 64 bit editions. Version 12. | |
File 90% of your emails at the click of a button. Manage your Inbox and Sent Items folders. Move emails out of the Inbox to the correct folder at the click of a button. QuickFile remembers the folders used for each person and presents a short customized list each time. Use the same list to Send&File in one step instead of having to go back to your Sent Items folder. Plus many more email management features such as one-click creation of task/appointments from emails, newsletter processing, deferred non-urgent emails and much more. | |
This add-in allows you to manually or automatically execute the set of rules against Junk Email folder. | |
Timed Email Organizer is a brand new add-in which can replace or augment your Outlook rules. Unlike Outlook, this add-in will act on emails based on how old they are, supports ANDs, ORs, NOTs and wildcards in the conditions, and has a test mode so that you can see what the effect of a given rule would be if it were run. It will even import your current Outlook rules and automatically disable them for you. |
Mark Pearson says
Outlook office 2007 did support this it is only it is only since I moved to 2019 I have had a problem, I have to rerun the rules, it seems that 2019 ignores unread emails unless you run it manually
Brian says
Hi Diane, I was wondering if you're still a fan of Auto-Mate?
Best,
Brian
Diane Poremsky says
I have no used it in years, so I can't comment on the current version.
(I find the fewer addins I use, the easier it is for me to find bugs and repro user's issues.)
Fernando says
Hello Diane
This article is of the year 2013. Is there still no way to run a rule after read an email?
Diane Poremsky says
No, not automatically. There are addins that can do it, but Outlook's rules run as the messages arrive or when you click Run Rules Now. A macro could trigger run rules now every few hours...
jloffi says
Is there any way of reviewing all of the emails I requested to be deleted from my inbox. I fear that I may have inadvertently selected one wrong email, as this, which is a bill, is no longer appearing in my inbox?
Diane Poremsky says
There is no long file, but the deleted items should be in the Deleted items folder (or Trash, if using IMAP). If you emptied the deleted items, it can't be recovered unless you use an Exchange Server mailbox. Sorry.
Ditya Rama says
Nice article Ibu Diane Poremsky (sorry if my english not quite well, i'am from Indonesia).
I have a problem , after making Rule. I'am using Office 2010.
To move into a folder e.mail . Now e.mail is not visible in the list of email . But the number of incoming email can be clearly seen next to the folder name .
It only occurs in a single folder only, in other folders are all no problem with the rule that I apply . And E.mail still be seen clearly , in a folder that is not problematic .
Is there enter to solve this problem ? thank you in advance.
Diane Poremsky says
Have you tried resetting the view? It sounds like the view is hiding the messages.
JB says
Hmm, I never noticed it before in outlook 2007, as any email I put in deleted folder (or deleted), didn't show up as "unread." Is there a rule I can do that classifies anything in the deleted folder as read? Or do I just have to spend my whole day marking the entire folder as read...
Wow, Outlook 2013 has sure kept you busy with all us whiners!!!! :)
Diane Poremsky says
A rule won't do it - it only applies to messages as they are downloaded. A macro or quick step will mark them read as they are added/moved to the folder or you can right click on the folder every now and again and choose mark all read.
I used to right click every now and again and mark all read or emptied it, now I don't even bother with that as deleted items are cleaned out as they age and I stopped noticing the unread count in the deleted folder a long time ago, in part because I use the Favorites list (in the Mail module) and Deleted Items is not on that list. (My mail servers now delete junk mail and deleted items as they age, but I used to use Autoarchive to delete the older messages in both folders.)
JB says
Is there a way to have any email that has been moved to the deleted folder, be marked as read? This didn't seem to be a problem in outlook 2007, but now in outlook 2013, every time I delete an email (or delete from a different device), I have a bunch of emails in my deleted folder showing "unread." It's annoying, as I mistake it for my inbox.
Diane Poremsky says
It worked the same way in 2007, so I'm not sure why it's more annoying now - the only way to change the behavior is by using a quick step to delete or a macro in Outlook that watches the deleted folder and marked new items read. See Mark deleted items read for the necessary VBA.
Armin says
OK, as a follow up on my own post. I manage to more or less work around the limitation using some VBA marco's.
As explained and experienced by other users, if an email is already read on another device (phone), a rule won't trigger on the desktop. Using VBA and NewmailEx also won't trigger for the same reason.
Using VBA and ItemAdd works fine, except it - by design - does not trigger if the amount of emails gets above a certain value. This value is undocumented for new releases, but MSDN lists 15 for older releases.
Then I realised that running a Rule manually works, and you can even specify the folder top run in. However although you can run this rule from a macro too, you then cannot specify its folder. When executed from a macro it will always run in the default (local) inbox, and therefore potentially not from the inbox of the account. (If someone knows how to fix this, I'd love to know, but several Bing-searches revealed many others encountered this as a showstopper as well.)
So then I decided to just do it manually in VBA.
1) Create a regular rule that copies all new mail from the IMAP inbox to the local inbox, and set a category. Use anyone you like.
2) Create a VBA macro that copies all mail from the IMAP inbox to the local inbox, except if the category is already set. This will then only copy mail that the regular rule did not catch. Of course then set the category too in your VBA macro.
You can then sign this macro and put it on your toolbar. You then only have to press it once each time you started Outlook and done a initial sync (unless you are actively reading on multiple devices in parallel). I can live with that.
The examples on this site helped a lot as I had never programmed VBA before.
Some improvements I still working one:
a) Unfortunately you cannot copy mail in VBA, so you have to
Set objCopy = objItem.Copy
objCopy.Move objLocallnbox
objItem.Category = strCategory
objItem.Save
This is still bad, as it will immediately sync the copy to the server IMAP folder, and then depending on Outlook version move it to trash (Outlook 2010+) or flag it for deletion (Outlook 2007-) delete it, causing lots of server activity and delay.
However it is likely the best option you have. In Outlook 2013 syncing will be in the background, so you may not notice it.
Of course I'm open to improvements.
b) Also your online mailbox will have these deleted copies from (a). I therefore then created a second subroutine to delete (Outlook 2010+) or purge (Outlook 2007-) these temp files.
objCopy.Delete
works fine for delete. For purge it is a bit harder. You can do this by navigating through the menu and assigning the final object to a button and then do:
objButton.Execute
I first looked up the unique ID, and then hardcoded this in my macro. You can also navigate using index values through the menu, but then if you shuffle items around it may not work.
Also make sure that you manually set the view in purge your macro to the IMAP folder, else the purge command (Outlook 2007-) may not be available.
c) The rule from step 1 will unfortunately first set a category and then copy, so all you emails through the rule will have that flag set. So for niceness, I then also created a second subroutine to clear all the categories on my local inbox.
All in all, this requires some programming skills and is not for the regular end-user.
Four improvements for Outlook 2016 which are on my Santa list:
I) Allow rules to trigger also on new read downloads and not just new unread mails.
II) Have a VBA NewEmailEx2 that triggers on downloaded email, read or unread
III) Add VBA ItemAdd2 event that always triggers regardless of item count, or allow users to set the registry or so to handle the limit.
IV) Allow a rule to run on any folder when executed from a macro (after all the user can do that through the UX already).
Either one of these would have made all of my work obsolete. In the mean time, I hope the above does help somebody.
Armin says
Thanks Dianne, however the problem *is* read vs unread. If I read the message on e.g. my Phone before starting Outlook on the desktop, the message is downloaded, but not flagged as 'new' and hence the regular Rules don't get triggered. The same applies to NewMailEx. This is by design.
A design which made sense with Outlook being the only mail client, but not in todays world where most users have multiple devices. E.g. like so many others I scan my emails on my phone to read/handle some urgent ones, and do the rest of my work at the office.
Now as explained, you might try ItemAdd macro, but then you hit the limitation of 15 items. It will simply not fire the event if more items are added in one sync-operation. This is even documented on MSDN.
Now that limitation perhaps made sense in the distant past, but with todays powerful desktop machines this limit should just be gone or at least some very high number.
Hence, only server-based rules are foolproof here. But most servers provide only limited rule capabilities to end-customers.
Microsoft really needs to step up its game here and revisit some old design assumptions from the past. (Although, like stated, Thunderbird has the same limitation.)
Armin says
This is an ancient limitation of Outlook. To be fair other products like Thunderbird also have this. A read message is not a 'new' message.
Not completely unreasonable perhaps, but in 2013 most users have multiple devices. Thsi did make sense in the past, but less today.
So create a macro, right? Except that macro's don't help here either. The ItemAdd does not fire if the amount of additions is too large. Too large is however defined by Microsoft as ... 15. So don't subscribe to any mailinglist or use corporate IMAP :-)
In a last desperate attempt I tried manual macro's and just put a button on my bar I'd press after startup myself. Too bad, as Outlook will default to your personal Inbox to execute the rule, but not the IMAP inbox. When running manually you can select which inbox, but in a macro ... well perhaps you can, but I have not found out how to specify the target of the rule.
In essence, you are toast if you cannot have a server-based rule.
Diane Poremsky says
The problem isn't so much between Read and Unread, but that rules run as messages download and if the message is already downloaded, something needs to trigger the rule. If the code is too much for Rules and ItemAdd, NewMailEx event might work - I'm not sure what it's limitation is.
You can use a macro that uses current folder, but if moving messages, you need to use a hard coded folder or select the folder. Outlook's Run Rules now should work on read or unread.
Mark Flaming says
I have exactly the same problem as Tobias. Outlook rules will not move a copy of an email received in an IMAP account if that email has been viewed previously on my phone. I would be so grateful for a solution to this.
Tobias Morris says
I do have 2 copies of all messages but that doesn't really concern me. My only issue is that where I have read an email on my iphone, it does not come to my unified inbox as the rules I have set up do not work on read messages. Is there a fix for this? Thanks Diane.
Diane Poremsky says
I under if a Rules script would work... Run a script rules. There are links to sample scripts at the bottom of the page.
Tobias Morris says
Sorry I wasn't clear, Outlook downloads the message to the separate inbox but not to the unified new inbox I created. I would like all messages whether read or unread on my iphone to come into the unified inbox that I have created. The rules work for unread messages but where I have read a message on my iphone, the rule does not work and the message is not copied as per rule to my unified inbox. Thanks Diane.
Diane Poremsky says
So you have 2 copies of all messages? Have you considered using an Instant Search query, such as the one at How to Create a Unified Inbox View
Tobias Morris says
Hi Diane, I have just started using Outlook 2010 upgrading from 2003. I have created a unified inbox for my email accounts. I have set up rules to move copies of all messages into my unified inbox. This does not work where I have read an email on my iphone before downloading in Outlook 2010. Is there any fix to this (other than marking email as unread in iphone)? Thanks for your help.
Diane Poremsky says
Outlook isn't downloading the message at all? Who is your email provider?
raedzahr says
i've a blackberry who gets all my emails, after i created on outlook 2007 the rules and alerts to move my emails to the specific folder each, i'm receiving no emails on the blackberry after execution of these rules, the problem also that the inbox is giving no new emails unless i enter to the folders created inside it... strange thinking of microsoft.
Cindy Melgaard says
Should I include "which is an automatic reply"? I associate auto-replies with people who are out of the office, but maybe that would apply to GoToMeeting replies as well?
Diane Poremsky says
I don't think you need automatic reply in it. Also, if you are a delegate or have send as permission, you could create it on his calendar and have responses go to him automatically.
What version of Outlook? If 2010, Click File, Properties and have replies sent to his address. Test it to see if it works - I have not tried it with Meetings as it is not supported in older versions. (It works fine for email.) ETA: I did a quick test - a copy of the accept/decline goes to the address i entered in options and a copy comes to me, to update the meeting request.
Cindy Melgaard says
I have two rules and the one I am having trouble with is the first one. It reads as follows:
"Apply this rule after the message arrives
where my name is in theTo or Cc box
and with gotomeeting in the subject or body
and which is a meeting invitation or update
forward it to Bert Newman
and display a Desktop Alert"
I am sending out GoToMeeting invitations and want the "accept", "decline" responses to go directly to my boss.
Cindy Melgaard says
I am trying to create a rule that automatically forwards GoToMeeting replies. I have set the rule, however, it does not work unless I go in each time and say 'run rules now.' The problem with that is that my boss then gets duplicates as the rule pulls from everything in my in-box and not just the new incoming messages. Any suggestions?
Diane Poremsky says
How does the rule read currently? Do you have Stop processing enabled? Where within your rules list is this rule? Try moving it up the list, so it runs first.