Dave, I recently upgraded from Outlook 2002 to Office 2003 and now my rules do not work. I have edited them, deleted them and re-entered the information but they just will not work. Any ideas?
This is a tough one, but here’s how Microsoft explains what to do when Outlook rules aren’t working:
After you upgrade to Outlook 2003 from Outlook 2000 IMO with multiple POP accounts, rules that are based on the through the specified account option might not work. To work around this problem, recreate the rules in Outlook 2003.
To create a rule for POP accounts in Outlook 2003
- On the Tools menu in Outlook 2003, click Rules and Alerts.
- Click New Rule.
- Click Start from a blank rule, and then click Next
- Under Which condition(s) do you want to check?, select the through the specified account check box, and then click the underlined value to enter the specified POP account.
- Click Next.
- Under What do you want to do with the message?, click Move it to the specified folder, and then click the underlined value to enter the specified folder.
- Click Next
- Click Next
- Click Finish
Not a very desirable solution, but that’s not uncommon from Microsoft in my experience. These steps were listed on this page that had things to consider before upgrading. Apparently this is result of code change. Outlook has a 32K character limit per account for *all* rules. In Outlook 2003 they made the rules take unicode characters effectively sawing your rules limit in half since unice takes two bytes per char.
WHY DOESN’T THE OUTLOOK E-MAIL RULES WORK? I HAVE DONE & RE-DONE, DELETED & RE-DONE THE RULES SEVERAL TIMES. I HAVE TRIED TO DO WHAT IS STATED MORE THAN ONCE & THEY WORK ONLY ONE TIME THEN AFTER THE SECOND E-MAIL THAT I HAVE MADE RULES FOR THEY ALL GO TO MY SPAM FOLDER & I HAVE TO MANUALLY MOVE THEM EVERY TIME TO THE EXISTING FOLDER AFTER I CORRECT IT & MOVE EACH ONE BACK TO MY INBOX THEN TO THE PARTICULAR FOLDER THAT IT SHOULD GO TO. I ONLY HAVE ABOUT 12 RULES & DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO. I HAVE NOTICED THAT THIS STARTED WHEN THE NEW VERSION WENT INTO AFFECT & WAS UPGRADED AUTOMATICALLY. I HAVE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM WITHIN THE “OUTLOOK” (POP3) ACCOUNT THAT YOU SET UP WITHIN THE MICROSOFT SOFTWARE & WAS TOLD THAT THIS PROBLEM WOULD STOP IF I GO THRU THE SERVER . BUT SINCE THE UPGRADE THIS HAD NO EFFECT WHAT SO EVER. WHEN I CREATE RULES THEY GO TO MY SPAM FOLDER & THE SPAM MAIL GOES INTO MY INBOX. I KEEP ON MOVING THEM & THE PROGRAM KEEPS ON SAYING THAT WHEN I MOVE E-MAIL FROM THE SPAM FOLDER THAT A NEW RULE IS CREATED & WILL NO LONGER BE SPAM BUT THE NEXT ONE STILL GOES TO MY SPAM FOLDER. THEN WHEN I GET SPAM IN MY INBOX, I TELL THE PROGRAM THAT THIS IS SPAM & IT STATED THAT IT IS MOVING IT TO THE SPAM FOLDER & MARKING IT AS SPAM BUT THE NEXT TIME I GET THAT SAME TYPE OF MAIL IT STILL CONTINUES TO GO TO MY INBOX.
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION TO THIS ONGOING PROBLEM? DO I NEED TO CLOSE OUT MY MICROSOFT ACCOUNT & START A DIFFERENT ONE OR WHAT? THIS IS GETTING EXTREMELY UPSETTING & MAKE ME THINK THAT TODAYS TECHNOLOGY IS CRAP & NEEDS TO BE DOWNGRADED BACK TO THE VERSION 10 YEARS AGO.
OUTLOOK 2003
I have many rules to delete “un-wanted” spam mails. However I have to execute the rule manually. What I am looking for is to have the rule DELETE the incoming spam-mail or junk-mail
Would anyone be able to assist?
RP
hi dave,
my problem is:
i have two email accounts in outlook; one of them is pop3 one of them is exchange server. i put a rule for pop3 email account. but even if i try to send my emails from pop3 account, outlook sends emails from the exchange account. i couldn’t fix it maybe you may help.
thanks in advance
zekai
Regarding the “two copies” problem when creating a rule to move emails to a folder (and the fix – checking “stop processing more rules”.)
It does work, and I now understand why (at least in my case) it was needed.
I have several email accounts coming into outlook. I had one rule saying that if it comes in addressed to this account, put it in that folder. Then when I created the second rule, saying if it comes in from this sender, put it in that folder.
Outlook saw the email meeting both rules, so it put a copy of it in each folder.
i finally got gmail to work with outlook 2003. i use a Motorola Gateway router, i had to add a new firewall policy to my gateway and bingo, gmail now works with outlook.
Hi Dave,
I get a mail Sub “WARN Thread usage for EndurTradeSub VEST is 40 Percent “. I want to set a rule in outlook 2003 inorder to move this mail to a folder name “issues” only if the percentage is less than 50. IF the percent is more than 50 I dont want to move this mail to the folder. Please advise.
My outlook 2003 rules & alerts are not working if I use outlook in offline, it works fine if you work online. I don’t what happened? is there any setup problem. Please advice
Thank you TomB for informing us of the PST fix, this has fixed my rules for auto-responding.
* Run SCANPST.EXE/SCANOST.EXE (C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033) to scan & repairs errors in your PST file.
Hi Dave,
I have a rules bug I can’t figure out:
I manage an Catholic Apologetics web site at:
AskACatholic.com
I receive e-mail from a list server: a list of people who receive the same question.
I’ve set up an E-mail Rule to redirect e-mails I receive with the following in the subject line: “I have a Catholic question” to my unanswered questions folder.
The problem: When I reply to the e-mail (IN THE unanswered folder), it is NOT sent but comes back into the folder for which I created the rule?
What’s going on? You can e-mail me at:
mike.humphrey@rcn.com
I had problems with the outlook 2007 not running automatically. I tried almost everthing…yet the only fix turned out to be removing/deleting the current profile created on the workstation and adding a new one. This forced the outlook client to rebuild and re-establish connection with the mail server (exchange) etc…
For the last couple of weeks I am being told that when someone receives and email from me they are getting multiple copies of it. Some has had 103 of the same email. What has changed on my outlook to cause this.
Is it possible to setup an outlook rule to move folders? I have a list of folders that are created each day and then moved offline. Is it possible to setup a rule to auto copy sub folders moved to a top level folder to a second folder?
e.g. The inbox has several sub folders Mon/Tue/Wed etc. When a new folder is copied to Mon it can be moved offline but is it possible to do this automatically or on a timer?