Outlook Organize Accounts How To Direct Mail

Mozilla Thunderbirds Filter Rules dialog provides many options for redirecting the mail you receive automatically.

Gone are the days of having only two e-mail accounts: one from your boss for work and another from your ISP for everything else.

Now youre likely to have a Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or other free Webmail account--and maybe two, three, or more such addresses--in addition to or in place of your work and ISP accounts.

You can avoid having to open multiple programs or browser windows to view all your messages by forwarding mail between your active accounts.

That way youve got one universal in-box thats accessible from a desktop mail app such as Outlook or Thunderbird and from a single browser window.

A nice bonus of this technique is the ability to manage all your mail based on the strengths of each mail system: the rules, sortability, and integration of desktop clients such as Outlook and Thunderbird, and the easy, near-universal access of Webmail.

This also lets you filter the mail you receive at various accounts so less-important messages--such as the weekly neighborhood newsletter and special offers from your favorite merchants--are diverted automatically from your in-box to folders for review when you have the time.

Outlook Organize Accounts How To Direct Mail

It has been almost three years since I explained how to direct mail to and from Gmail accounts and Outlook and Thunderbird.

The Gmail help site provides up-to-date instructions for forwarding Gmail messages to POP and IMAP accounts and also for importing mail from other accounts into Gmail.

Linking a POP or IMAP account to Hotmail is almost as simple.

After you sign into your Hotmail account, navigate to the Hotmail Options page, enter the e-mail address and password, and click Next.

Hotmail will attempt to connect to the account and import its data.

You can create a new folder for the imported account or assign it to an existing folder.

You can also select one of seven color-coded icons to use for the folder.

Microsofts Hotmail service makes it easy to import mail from a POP or IMAP account.

In Outlook this is done by creating rules that automatically forward the messages to the folder of your choice, including the Deleted Items folder.

Make your selections and click OK, or choose Advanced Options to open the Rules Wizard.

Keep non-priority messages out of your Outlook inbox by directing them automatically to a separate folder via the Create Rule dialog box.

In Outlook 2007 and 2010, redirect less-important mail by right-clicking the message, selecting Rules, and choosing one of the four options: Always Move Messages From, Always Move Messages To, Create Rule, or Manage Rules Alerts.

Selecting one of the first two options prompts you to select a folder or create a new folder to store the messages to or from the specified account.

The other two options open the Create Rule dialog box and the Rules Alerts dialog, respectively.

For more on creating and using Outlook 2003s rules to manage your mail, see the article on Microsofts Office Support site.

The site also describes the rules-creation process for Outlook 2007 and for Outlook 2010.

Give the filter a name, select the desired filter criteria in the drop-down menus, and click OK.

Outlook For Mac Organize Accounts