Dool said:
Hi,
I understand that rules in Outlook has a limitation of 32KB size. One
of the
methods to reduce the size of rules is to combine rules.
KiloBYTES is a measure of capacity, not a count. A line of 12
characters and two lines of 6 characters each is still 12 characters
total (okay, there is the addition of one CR-LF). The 32KB is a fixed
capacity quota per mailbox on the Exchange server (which you never
mentioned). You never mentioned WHAT you use as your mail server. If
using POP3 then your .pst file records your rules and the only limit on
the PST file is that it should not exceed 1.87GB in size (33TB
theoretical in OL2003) although I suspect there is a *count* maximum of
64K for indexing, which is NOT a byte limit.
In Outlook XP similar rules are recognized and automatically combined
in one
rule.
Oh, really? My rules have never been corrupted (i.e., modified) by
OL2002 regardless of how similar or dissimilar they are. I've never
seen my rules get merged since obviously that would alter their
behavior. Two successive rules equivalence an OR condition (i.e., the
two rules are OR'ed). You could logically merge them into one rule
which ORs the conditions but that is NOT the same behavior simply
because the first rule may short-circuit (via a stop clause) any
subsequent testing to avoid having to waste resources on exercising any
subsequent rules. If the condition of the first rule is met and which
has a stop clause then no more rules get exercised and no time is wasted
processing superfluous or unwanted rules. Outlook doesn't short-circuit
OR'ed conditions within the same rule. If you have a dozen conditions
getting OR'ed within an Outlook rule then all of them get tested even if
the first one was met (i.e., "1 OR anythingElse" gives you 1 so you
really don't have to do the "anythingElse" tests).
However in Outlook 2003 the rules are not combined automatically. I'm
in real need for those rules but it's hard to combine similar rules
manually.
Is there any workaround for this. Either to increase the size of rules
or
combine similar rules automatically.
If you have anywhere near 32KB in rules then you are very inefficient in
your rule definitions. Most likely you are one of those that think a
rule with a huge static list of bad words is going to help eliminate
spam. You end up with rules looking for sex, viagra, mortgage, young
girls, and other words (which are actually phrase or string matches) and
keep adding to that list as you encounter more spam while also upping
your false positive count (e-mails that weren't spam that your rule said
was spam), like you buddy's e-mail getting trashed that discussed how to
use a sextant. It's time you clean up your rules. It's time to find
better anti-spam solutions.
I mean by similar rules for example two rules from different senders
to move
emails from them to the same folder.
Can anyone help please ?
Like I said, time for YOU to cleanup your rules. Obviously if e-mails
from multiple senders are getting the same action upon them then you
should've already combined those conditions. Define one rule with a
list of all those senders that then enforces the same action, but be
aware that the rule will take awhile to run as you keep adding more
senders along with becoming more and more unmanageable over time. You
really want to use one rule to enact the same action for dozens if not
hundreds of similar senders? Why not put all those known senders into
a contact-type folder and define a rule that performs the same action
for everyone listed in that contact-type folder?
I always used a whitelisting rule at the top of the list (right after my
blacklist rules) that keep e-mails from known senders (i.e., those in my
Contacts list). Unfortunately, Outlook doesn't let you specify more
than one contact-type folder per rule, so if you have N contact-type
folders then you need to define N rules with 1 contact-type folder
specified per rule.
