Office 365 (Outlook on the web) - Inbox Rules

Follow these steps to create inbox rules that can automatically manage your messages as you receive them.

  • From the Outlook app, select the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and select Mail from the menu.


  • In the Options screen, click the Mail heading, then Automatic processing, then select Inbox and sweep rules.

  • Click the plus + symbol to create a new rule

  • In the "New inbox rule" screen, enter a descriptive name for the new rule in the "Name" text box. Then, choose a condition (or multiple conditions) from the "When the message arrives, and it matches all of these conditions" drop-down list as well as an action from the "Do all of the following" drop-down list:


  • In this example, all incoming emails that are sent to the "benefits-news@uwm.edu" list will be moved into the UWM folder.
  • Click the OK button to save your rule.


  • Rules will be applied in the order shown in the list of "Inbox rules". You can change the order of rules using the up and down arrow in the "Inbox rules" screen.
  • You can also create inbox rules outside of the settings app and base them upon specific messages you have received. To do this, right-click an email message and select "Create rule..." from the menu:


Additionally, here are some more tips for using rules:
  • Some types of messages won't trigger Inbox rules, including:
    • Delivery status notifications, which include non-delivery reports and system messages.
    • Read receipts and delivery receipts that are generated by an e-mail client.
    • Some automatic-reply (Out of Office) messages.
  • Each rule you create will take up space in a hidden section of your mailbox. This section is limited to 64 KB. The actual amount of space a rule uses depends on several factors, such as how long the name is and how many conditions you've applied. When you reach the 64 KB limit, you'll be warned that you can't create any more rules. If that happens, you'll have to delete or simplify some of your existing rules before you can create more. Some ways you can reduce the space used by rules are:
    • Delete rules you no longer need.
    • Shorten the names of your rules.
    • Combine one or more rules that do the same thing.
    • Remove criteria from rules.
  • When you create a forwarding rule, you can add more than one address to forward to. The number of addresses you can forward to may be limited, depending on the settings for your account. If you add more addresses than are allowed, your forwarding rule won't work. If you create a forwarding rule with more than one address, test it to be sure it works.
  • Links to Microsoft's Outlook rules guides: