Advanced Outlook Settings	Printer Friendly
Computing Services Information Document	PC/Windows

General Information

This web page contains information on configuring some of the advanced features of the Outlook email program.
The primary instructions for configuring Outlook are available here.
For general information on email at Rutgers, please visit the main email web page found here.

Sent Mail and Drafts

The main Outlook instructions discuss using Outlook's defaults for copies of sent or draft/saved mail. The "Sent Items" "Drafts" and "Outbox" folders, along with "Deleted Items" and "Junk E-mail" (see below), are called special folders. Although it is not possible to change the default location of these special folders, it is possible to store sent and draft/saved emails on the server.

One benefit of storing emails within remote/server folders is the ability to see and access such folders/emails on other systems, including via Web Mail.
If you decide to use a remote/server folder to store your sent emails, Outlook will not create this folder automatically. Instead, right-click on an account or folder and choose "New Folder..." from the menu that appears in order to create a subfolder in same, or create the folder while also creating the rule (see below).

NOTE: Outlook refuses to allow sent emails to be automatically moved via rules. Instead, Outlook only allows them to be copied. If you use the below rule, keep in mind that you will have a copy of your sent emails on the server as well as in the "Sent Items" folder in the "Personal Folders" (local) list. You can get around this by turning off the automatic saving of sent emails in addition to using a rule (see the "NOTE" following the rule instructions, below).

To use a "rule" to copy mail to the server:

1. First, make sure to click on (select) the "Sent Items" folder under the "Personal Folders' list.
2. Go to the "Tools" menu and select the "Rules and Alerts..." option ("Rules Wizard..." in v2000 or older).
3. Click the "New Rule..." button ("New..." button in v2000 or older).
4. Select the "Start from a blank rule" option (N/A in v2000 or older).
5. Select "Check messages after sending" in the list below ("Move messages I send to someone" in v2000 or older).

Here's a sample screenshot:

6. Click the "Next >" button.
7. Scroll down the list and check the "on this machine only" box (N/A in v2000 or older).

Here's a sample screenshot:

8. Click the "Next >" button.
9. Check the "move a copy to the specified folder" box in the next list that appears (and uncheck "sent to people or distribution list" in v2000 or older).

Here's a sample screenshot:

10. Click the "specified" link in the lower part of the rules screen (under "Step 2").
11. In the window that appears, choose the folder you would like to move sent emails into. If the folder does not yet exist, you can create it with the "New..." button.

Here's a sample screenshot:

12. Once you have selected the appropriate folder, click the "OK" button.
13. The "specified" link (in the "Step 2" area), now takes the name of the folder that you just selected.
14. Click the "Next >" button (click "Yes" to any warning and click "Next >" an additional time in v2000 or older)).
15. Click the "Next >" button again (no exceptions to setup).
16. In the last rules screen, give this rule a name (i.e., "Use IMAP Sent Folder").
17. Check the "Turn on this rule" box.
18. The other boxes are optional.

Here's a sample screenshot:

19. Click the "Finish" button.
20. Click the "OK" button to close the rules window.
21. Now, when you send an email, a copy should be placed in the remote/server folder as well as the local "Sent Items" folder.

You can repeat the above process for your draft/saved email. Simply substitute the "Sent Items" folder for "Drafts" and the "sent-mail" (or similar) folder for one you wish to use to store draft/saved emails.

While you do not have the option of turning off the "Drafts" folder completely (except by never saving a draft email), you can stop Outlook from automatically saving a copy of every sent email by going to the "Tools" menu and selecting "Options." In the "Options" screen that appears, click the "Preferences" tab and then the "Email Options..." button and uncheck the Save copies of messages in Sent Items folder box. One drawback of this setting is the need to manually include your own email address in either the To:, Cc: or similar field(s) for any email for which you do want a copy saved. If you rarely need copies of sent email, then this may be an ideal solution.
NOTE: If you turn off the automatic saving of sent emails for the "Sent Items" folder, but also setup a rule to copy sent messages elsewhere, as described above, then you will still have the copies of sent emails in the folder defined in the rule.

No matter what you decide, you should make a concentrated effort to organize your emails into folders and subfolders and keep the number of emails in your "Inbox" to a minimum.

Spam/Junk Mail Filtering

The campus uses spam filters for all incoming mail. More information on spam filtering and managing the spam filtering for your account can be found here.
Outlook v2003 includes its own, built-in email filtering functionality. Although Outlook's junk mail filtering should be enabled by default, emails marked as junk/spam are not moved or deleted automatically. In order to adjust these settings, you should follow these steps:

1. Go to the "Actions" menu, then to the "Junk E-mail" submenu to choose "Junk E-mail Options..."
2. You can adjust the level of junk e-mail protection as desired.
3. You can also choose to move or delete (not recommended) suspected junk e-mail.

Here is a sample screenshot:

NOTE: Outlook v2002/XP has very limited junk/spam filtering support. For example, you cannot modify the words and phrases used to identify spam (although you can view them), and it does not "learn" to better handle junk/spam as you work with it. Although you can add a sender to your filter list (right-click on a junk/spam message you received, select "Junk E-mail," and then click "Add to Junk Senders list"), most spammers vary their e-mail address with every message, making such efforts fairly ineffective.

No matter how you configure Outlook's Junk E-mail Options (unless you turn them off completely), Outlook should learn to better handle junk/spam emails as you tell it what is and isn't junk/spam. To do this, select any message(s) to be marked or unmarked as junk/spam and select one of the "Add" options or "Mark as Not Junk..." via the "Junk E-mail" submenu under the "Actions" menu.

Questions/Comments/Concerns

Additional information on configuring and using Outlook beyond the above can be found by going to the "Help" menu in Outlook.

If you have any difficulty with any of the above, please contact help@camden.rutgers.edu for more information.