Set up Outlook rules and spam filter — less clutter in your inbox

Your inbox fills up with newsletters, CC emails you never needed, and the occasional spam. Outlook has built-in tools to keep that under control — most people never use them.

Creating rules in Outlook

A rule tells Outlook to automatically act on incoming emails. Examples:

• Emails from a specific sender → move to a folder
• Emails with a specific subject → mark as read
• Emails where you’re CC’d → flag for follow-up

How to create a rule:

1. Right-click an email in your inbox
2. Choose Rules > Create Rule
3. Set the condition (sender, subject, recipient)
4. Choose the action (move, delete, forward)
5. Click OK — the rule applies immediately to new messages

Want to apply the rule to existing messages too? Check Run this rule now on messages already in the current folder.

Advanced rules (Rules and Alerts)

For more options: go to Home > Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts. Here you can see all active rules, adjust priority (order determines which rule wins), and set more complex conditions like multiple senders at once.

Tip: if a rule isn’t working as expected, check the order. Outlook applies rules from top to bottom and stops as soon as a rule executes “move this message” — unless you check Continue processing more rules.

Tightening the spam filter

Outlook has a built-in junk email filter. To adjust it:

1. Go to Home > Junk > Junk E-mail Options
2. Choose the level:
   • Low (default): only the most obvious spam
   • High: more aggressive, but more false positives
   • Safe Lists Only: only approved senders get through

Adding safe senders: if a legitimate email lands in spam, right-click it > Junk > Never Block Sender. The address is then added to your safe list.

Blocking senders

Getting repeated emails from the same address or domain?

• Right-click the email > Junk > Block Sender
• Or block an entire domain: go to Junk E-mail Options > Blocked Senders and add @domain.com

With Microsoft 365 (Outlook.com or Exchange) you can also set more advanced block rules via the web interface.

Inbox Zero: a workable system

A simple approach that works:

• “Follow-up” folder — emails where you need to take action
• “Archive” folder — everything you want to keep but don’t need actively
• Delete immediately — anything you’ll never need again

Create rules that automatically route newsletters and notifications to a separate folder so your inbox only contains real messages.

Don’t have a business email address yet? Read how to set one up on your own domain. Or see how to configure Outlook on your laptop or phone.

Can’t get it working or is Outlook behaving strangely? DeskCare fixes Outlook issues via remote session.