"Message Rules" are rules that Outlook and Outlook Express use to perform certain actions with certain messages. They may be used to send automated reply mail, to move your mail into certain, criteria specific folders, to highlight it, or, most commonly, to automatically delete or avoid unwanted mail (SPAM).
The following is an explanation of using a message rule to block offensive email:
In Outlook Express:
- Click 'Tools', 'Message Rules', and select 'Mail'.
- Click 'New'.
- Select the necessary actions. In this example, we will have the message rules automatically delete all emails with a certain word in the subject field. Once the rules are selected, click on the blue links in the bottom text area to define the criteria for completing the selected actions.
- Add the criteria here. Let's say you find football particularly offensive, and you don't want to receive any emails with "football" in the subject field. Just type "football" here, and click add. You can continue adding words that you wish to block (highly usefully in blocking unwanted SPAM).
- Click 'OK' on all of the message rule windows until you're back to Outlook Express.
- Lastly, blocking specific senders may be useful. Let's say you're getting many SPAM message from different users @football.com, or from just one user (maybe johndoe@football.com). You can block this one user, or all @football.com email address by selecting 'Block Senders' and 'Add'.
- Enter the appropriate domain name (football.com) or user (johndoe@football.com) here.
