Outlook

[Pat Hartman]

Is there an addin that manages rules in a useful way? I'm trying to find a rule that is getting rid of email I want. Thee is no search or sort that I can find. Usually, they allow email I don't want to pass through

 

[Gasman]

Just the rules manager, afaik

Edit: See if you can massage this?

How to get text values of rules in MS Outlook using VBA?

I am trying to get the text value(s) of the conditions for a rule that I have set up in MS Outlook. I have created a rule named "TestRule" with a condition based on text in the message Body (it ...

stackoverflow.com

 

[Pat Hartman]

That doesn't seem useful. I don't know the name of the rule that is moving the email. If I did,I could fix it. I did find an export but since it created a custom file type I didn't bother looking at the output. I need plain text so I can figure out what rule is being invoked.

For such a sophisticated application, Outlook has really poor tools for managing rules.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

To where is the mail being moved? Your two possibilities are to actually delete the mail or to move it to the Deleted Items folder. There is also the chance that the move is specific to inbound mail from a specific source or TO an alternate e-mail target. (My wife had her own e-mail and a club-based e-mail for an organization for which she was the president, as one example of multiple mail targets.)

I know you have remained active in business to at least some degree. Do you do business under multiple names?

How many rules do you have active?

 

[Gasman]

That doesn't seem useful. I don't know the name of the rule that is moving the email. If I did,I could fix it. I did find an export but since it created a custom file type I didn't bother looking at the output. I need plain text so I can figure out what rule is being invoked.

For such a sophisticated application, Outlook has really poor tools for managing rules.

You have that many rules?
I was trying to find the object model. I got as far as listing the names, but the rest appears to be numbers where a number matches 'Move to folder...' etc.

If someone made a workable Outlook Viewer/Editor, they would make a fortune.

I have tried, but it needs an experienced developer to work out the structure.

Specifying Rule Actions

Office VBA reference topic

learn.microsoft.com

 

[Pat Hartman]

You have that many rules?

Too many to be happy working without even a sort for help.

 

[Gasman]

Not sure if this would help a developer?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Not sure if this would help a developer?

It was Greek to me. Looks like a very complex, shorthand way to store the rules for a rule. I'm sure there is some really cool code behind the scenes that applies these codes to processing each email and deciding what to do with it. I'm just trying to get the text parts of the rule. It's "name", the "folder" it moves something to, the string you initially search for that identifies what email a rule applies to.

 

[Pat Hartman]

To where is the mail being moved?

I don't know. That is what I am trying to determine. All I know is the email comes in and immediately gets sent to another folder. There are about thirty receiving folders and about 200 rules. There is only one email address. I started searching at the first receiving folder and eventually found the email. But I still have no way of identifying what rule made it move so I can stop it.

This particular company inundates me with junk emails so I started building rules to funnel most of them to a bulk email folder. The problem is that sometimes I actually need to see the email so I want it in my inbox. I don't want it to be shunted off to something I may never look at. In this case, they were sending me a code to enter and whatever header they are using for the code email, is the same header as most of their junk notices. This is an online pharmacy and they have the absolute worst website I have ever had to use. I don't have a choice since my new drug insurance wants me to use their online delivery. OK, that is fine but the website is a total nightmare. Here's a little of their backwards logic. When I switched to them, they moved every prescription I had gotten in the previous two years from Walgreens to their site. OK. But many of them were one-offs. A rash, an antibiotic, a change in dosage and were never, ever going to be filled again. Since their pages are so poorly formatted, I can't see more than three drugs at a time, it is important to be able to clear out the debris but no. I cannot hide these old, prescriptions that have no refills BUT, new prescriptions that do have refills I can hide. I'm sure that makes sense to someone but not to me. Even being able to sort by most recently filled would be somewhat helpful. They deliver 3 month supplies of each drug. They start sending me emails about my refill the day after the last batch arrived so it is THREE months before they will ship again and yet, they find something stupid and meaningless that they think I need to know. Of course they don't even try to get refill authorization until the day they need to ship so if my doctor's staff is a little lax in dealing with the authorizations, my next three month supply is delayed. They blame it on my doctor. My doctor blames it on them.

Aside from this current stupid problem, one really important function that is missing from the rules is the ability to banish all the emails from one site. You can trash an email from joe@blow.com but you can't trash any email from blow.com so the junk mailers just change joe to jim, jan, suzie, xxx, yyy zzz, etc so I end up with a dozen rules and they are totally ineffective.

 

[Gasman]

You would use mailwasher for that.

 

[Gasman]

Not according to this either?

Block or unblock senders in Outlook - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

Have you tried *@domain.com ?
Regardless MW will do that for you. I use that all the time.

 

[Pat Hartman]

You would use mailwasher for that.

That is what I eventually did. But I don't want to mark all of the annoying companies as junk so I need some more refinement. Mailwasher is good but is sits outside of Outlook and so it doesn't delete the emails that have already downloaded.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I didn't know you could use wildcards. I thought I had tried that and it failed. Maybe it works now. I STILL need to be able to cleanup what I have for rules because I still want them.

 

[Gasman]

200 rules?, wow

 

[Gasman]

AFAIK there are names, actions, conditions and exceptions. All are arrays of different types, depending on what you choose. As I mentioned before they appear to be numeric, so 34 might be 'unless it has whatever in the subject' . They are identified as being True or False.
I can get all the names very easily right now. But unless they are indicative of what they do, that is not much help. Plus you can already review those in the Rules anyway?

 

[Gasman]

Does this help?

Sub TestRule()
Dim olRules As Outlook.rules
Dim olRule As Outlook.Rule
Dim iRule As Integer, iAction As Integer, iException As Integer, iRuleAction As Integer
Dim oAction As Object

Set olRules = Application.Session.DefaultStore.GetRules
'Set olRule = olRules.item("TestRule")
For iRule = 1 To olRules.Count 'Each olRule In olRules

'    Debug.Print olRules.item(iRule).Name 'TypeName(iRule)
'    Debug.Print olRules.item(iRule).Enabled
'    Debug.Print olRules.item(iRule).Actions.Count
    For iAction = 1 To olRules.item(iRule).Actions.Count
        'Set oAction = olRules.item(iRule).Action
        If olRules.item(iRule).Actions(iAction).Enabled = True And olRules.item(iRule).Actions(iAction).ActionType = 1 Then
            Debug.Print "Rule: " & olRules.item(iRule).Name & vbTab & vbTab & vbTab & vbTab & "Folder: " & olRules.item(iRule).Actions(iAction).Folder.FolderPath
        End If
        'Debug.Print "ActionType: " & olRules.item(iRule).RuleActions.item(iAction)
    Next
    'Debug.Print olRules.item(iRule).Exceptions.Count
    'printArray olRules(iRule).Conditions.Body.Text
    'printArray olRules(iRule).Conditions.MessageHeader.Text
 
Next
Set oAction = Nothing
Set olRules = Nothing
Set olRule = Nothing
End Sub

Produces
Rule: XE Currency Folder: \\Personal Folders\Inbox\Gmail\XE
Rule: AirBnB Folder: \\Personal Folders\Inbox\Gmail\AirBnB
Rule: Google Support Folder: \\Personal Folders\Inbox\Gmail\Google Support
Rule: bleep@bleepingcomputer.com Folder: \\Personal Folders\Inbox\Gmail\Bleeping

 

[arnelgp]

Aside from this current stupid problem, one really important function that is missing from the rules is the ability to banish all the emails from one site. You can trash an email from joe@blow.com but you can't trash any email from blow.com so the junk mailers just change joe to jim, jan, suzie, xxx, yyy zzz, etc so I end up with a dozen rules and they are totally ineffective.

why not concede to blows.com request so they can go away with a smile.

 

[CJ_London]

. You can trash an email from joe@blow.com but you can't trash any email from blow.com

doesn't answer the original question about finding a rule but in response to this statement how about using a rule along these lines

With blow.com in the sender's address​

move it to the junk folder​

except if from joe.blow.com​

you can add other .coms and specific emails to the same rule

you can have a subsequent rule to move joe.blow.com to a different folder if required or just leave in the inbox. Just need to ensure the rules are processed in the right order.

Might be more efficient to just delete all your existing rules and start again

 

[Pat Hartman]

Might be more efficient to just delete all your existing rules and start again

If I can actually move anything from blow.com I will. I swear I tried that and it didn't work. But that would have been years ago.

 

[Gasman]

@Pat Hartman So can you please respond to post #16?