HowTo-Outlook

When you use rules to sort your outgoing e-mails into folders you’ll notice that you can actually only "move a copy" to that folder. This rule is quite unclear and actually contradicts itself; does it move or does it copy? Well it copies and when you use the rule by default, you’ll end up with duplicates which is probably not what you want; you want it to move! This is still possible but it involves modifying another option and to carefully craft your e-mail rules.

Turn off the generic save option

Since we’re going to sort the outgoing e-mails by using rules we’re going all the way and actually also manage saving all outgoing messages by using rules. This means that we can turn off the generic option "Save copies of messages in Sent Items folder" which is on by default. You can find this option in;

• Outlook 2007 and previous
  Tools-> Options-> tab Preferences-> button E-mail Options…
• Outlook 2010
  File-> Options-> section Mail-> option group: Save messages

Create a rule to sort your outgoing mail

In this example we’ll create a rule to store all messages sent to John Doe in the a folder named "John Doe" which is a subfolder of the Sent Items folder.

1. Open the Rules wizard;
   • Outlook 2007 and previous
     Tools-> Rules and Alerts…
   • Outlook 2010
     tab Home-> section Move-> button Rules-> manage Rules and Alerts…
2. Select "Start from a blank rule"
3. Select "Check messages after sending" and press Next
4. In the Step 1 section select "sent to people or distribution list"
5. In the Step 2 section click "people or distribution list" and select John Doe from your address book and press Next
6. In the Step 1 section select "move a copy to the specified folder"
7. In the Step 2 section click "specified" and select the John Doe folder
8. In the Step 1 section select "stop processing more rules"
   This is important or you’ll end up with duplicates again!
9. Press Next and then Next again (unless you want to set exceptions)
10. Name the rule, verify that "Turn on this rule" is selected and press Finish

You can of course create additional rules to move messages to other people to different folders by repeating the above steps but note that you each time add the action "stop processing more rules" to the rule.

Create a rule to catch the rest of your mail

Currently we’re only saving the mails we’re sorting to other folders. Of course you want to store the rest of your outgoing messages to the Sent Items folder. We can do this by creating a generic rule; a rule without conditions.

1. Open the Rules wizard;
   • Outlook 2007 and previous
     Tools-> Rules and Alerts…
   • Outlook 2010
     tab Home-> section Move-> button Rules-> manage Rules and Alerts…
2. Select "Start from a blank rule"
3. Select "Check messages after sending" and press Next
4. Without selecting anything select Next.
5. You’ll get a dialog saying;
   "This rule will be applied to every message you send. Is this correct?"
   Press Yes
6. In the Step 1 section select "move a copy to the specified folder"
7. In the Step 2 section click "specified" and select the Sent Items folder
8. Press Next and then Next again (unless you want to set exceptions)
9. Name the rule, verify that "Turn on this rule" is selected and press Finish

Sort your rules

After creating the rules you must make sure that the rules are sorted correctly! You must set the generic rule to be executed last with above it the personalized sorting rules.

You can use the arrows in the Rules and Alerts dialog to sort your rules.

Sent Items Organizer

There is a small downside of organizing your outgoing emails with a rule which is that they all get marked as unread. Unfortunately you cannot solve this via a rule. If this annoys you and/or if you are looking for more flexibility is sorting your outgoing emails than the limited set of rules provided, then you can use the "Sent Items Organizer” add-in from Sperry Software. This add-in also comes with the option to be prompted in which folder you want to store your message when you press the Send button.
If you decide to order use BH93RF24 to get a discount.

You've probably come across this at least once; You receive a nicely HTML formatted message with embedded pictures so the sender can tell the story with the pictures and when you try to save the pictures you can only save them as a bmp-file. Or; you receive a fun e-mail with an animated gif-file and when you try to save it you can only save or copy it as a bmp-file which will of course break the animation.

This How To article explains how you can save the embedded pictures in their original file format. Continue reading: Save Embedded Pictures in Their Original Format