Filtering E-mail in Outlook Express (Message Rules)

In order to filter the "bad stuff" out of your e-mail,you can set up "message rules" or filters, in most e-mail clients. These can grab an incoming message and delete it before you ever lay eyes on it. You can have the message rules set up to check for certain subject lines, e-mail addresses, or even words.

The following example uses Outlook Express. Please note that most e-mail clients work in a similar way.

1. Click the Tools menu, Message Rules, Mail.

2. On the screen that pops up, click the New button (for newer versions of Outlook Express, you don't have to hit the New button - the screen you need pops up automatically).

3. At this point, there should be a screen that lets you set up your rules. Check the options you want to filter. As soon as you check them, you'll get a new item under the Rules Description section. Click the underlined area to set the actual stuff you're filtering for.

In this example, we're creating a rule based upon certain undesirable words, such as those that might be in mail containing porn; so click the checkbox in the first section, "Where the message body contains specific words".

Now, click the link in the Rules Description box for "Contains specific words" (this looks just like a regular web page link).

On the window that opens, type in the words you want to filter.

A word of caution: Pick your words very carefully. If you choose a word like "naked", you'll never get an e-mail that contains that word, even if it was used in a harmless way like "how it appears to the naked eye..." or something similar.

A few clicks of the OK button and you should be back to the message rules screen.

4. Now, you'll need to decide what you want done to the message once it gets filtered. This is done in the second section of the screen, "Select the actions you want to rule".

In this case, you're probably best to scroll down to the Delete From Server checkbox. That should prevent it from downloading. Or you can just send it to the Deleted Items folder, that works too.

That should help you keep SOME undesirable mail out of your inbox, but keep in mind that you can also use message filters to send stuff to specific folders you create. For example, if you have 3 e-mail accounts, you can set up a filter that sends each address to a different folder.