Incoming message Rule based on MESSAGE HEADER content - possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jonathan E. \(NZ\)
  • Start date Start date
J

Jonathan E. \(NZ\)

Hi there,
I wanted to know if there is any way to get a rule to pick up on things
within the HEADER content of an email?

I've look but can't find it. Before I conclude that this is yet another
limitation of Outlook I thought I would seek some help.

Thanks,

Jonathan
 
If you are seeking help, it is always NICE to mention your version of
Outlook since the rules get more granular with each version released.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After searching google.groups.com and finding no answer, Jonathan E. (NZ)
asked:

| Hi there,
| I wanted to know if there is any way to get a rule to pick up on
| things within the HEADER content of an email?
|
| I've look but can't find it. Before I conclude that this is yet
| another limitation of Outlook I thought I would seek some help.
|
| Thanks,
|
| Jonathan
 
"Jonathan E. (NZ)" said in news:[email protected]:
Hi there,
I wanted to know if there is any way to get a rule to pick up on
things within the HEADER content of an email?

I've look but can't find it. Before I conclude that this is yet
another limitation of Outlook I thought I would seek some help.

Thanks,

Jonathan
Click to expand...

There is a clause in the rules that will look for substrings in the
headers. However:

(1) While a substring search in the rule clause that looks in the
Subject header is case sensitive, I have found that searches in the
generalized "message header" clause are case sensitive. So if you look
for something like the Message-ID header (just to check if it exists)
then you have to search on "Message-ID", "message-id", "Message_Id", and
"Message_id" (there are other permutations for capitalization but those
are the spellings that I've seen so far).

(2) You can't pick a particular header to look for if you are looking
for their values. I can search on "Message-ID" to see if the header
exists but I cannot search on a specific string JUST for that header.
If, for example, I'm trying to find out if the e-mail came from
ecare.com (or whatever it was that Comcast was contracting for their web
help), I could search for the "ecare.com" string to appear somewhere in
the headers but I could not restrict that search to only look in the
Received headers. You can, however, search on a header that has a
specific value, like "X-SpamPal: SPAM" which is what SpamPal inserts to
tag an e-mail as spam.

I'm using Outlook 2002 which has the clause "with <string> in the
message header", so I suspect Outlook 2003 has it, too. You don't
mention what version of Outlook that you use.

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