Sort newsgroup messages using rules

It can be difficult to keep up with the large volume of messages posted to popular newsgroups. You can use rules in Windows Mail to automatically highlight, flag, or download messages from specific individuals or with titles that contain specific words. You can also use rules to delete unwanted messages automatically, so that you never have to see them.

Creating a newsgroup rule in the New News Rule dialog box

1.     Open Windows Mail.

2.     Click the Tools menu, point to Message Rules, and then click News.

3.     In the New News Rule dialog box, under Select the Conditions for your rule, select one or more check boxes to set up the criteria that will be applied to incoming messages. If you select multiple conditions, click the and hyperlink in the Rule Description section. In the And/Or dialog box, click Messages match all of the criteria or Messages match any of the criteria, and then click OK.

4.     Under Select the Actions for your rule, select one or more check boxes to determine how to handle messages that meet the conditions you selected.

5.     Click the underlined hyperlinks in the Rule Description section to specify the conditions or actions for your rule. You can click the contains people or contains specific words hyperlinks in the Rule Description box to specify the people or words you'd like Windows Mail to look for in messages. If you enter multiple people or multiple words per condition, you can use the Options button in the Select People or Type Specific Words dialog boxes to further customize your rule.

6.     In the Name of the rule box, select the default name, type a new name that describes your rule, and then click OK.

Tips

• To create a new rule from an existing rule, select the rule you want to copy, click the News Rules tab, and then click Copy. This is useful when the new rule you want to create is similar to an existing rule. Create a copy of the original rule, and then modify the conditions or actions of the new rule as appropriate.
• To create a new rule from a message, click the message in the message list, click the Message menu, and then click Create Rule From Message. This will automatically fill in the name of the sender on the From line in the Rule Description section; no other information from the message is entered into the rule.