Rules default Inbox - Outlook 20007

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newbie

I have two accounts in Outlook 2007 - a POP3/SMTP account and an IMAP
account (does not provide SMTP support). The POP3 account is the default
account for outgoing mail. I want to set up Outlook to use the rules for
the IMAP account. How can I make Outlook use the IMAP Inbox as the default
for rules. The selection in the "Apply changes to this folder:" drop menu
doesn't "stick" when you select the IMAP Inbox in the Rules and Alerts menu.
 
newbie said:
I have two accounts in Outlook 2007 - a POP3/SMTP account and an IMAP
account (does not provide SMTP support). The POP3 account is the default
account for outgoing mail. I want to set up Outlook to use the rules for
the IMAP account. How can I make Outlook use the IMAP Inbox as the default
for rules. The selection in the "Apply changes to this folder:" drop menu
doesn't "stick" when you select the IMAP Inbox in the Rules and Alerts
menu.
Click to expand...


You can't AFAIK - because the IMAP account just mirrors what's on the server
whereas the Personal Folders Inbox resides on your HDD....
 
I understand how IMAP works. That is why I use IMAP; because the files
reside on the server and that allows me to check e-mail from my desktop
or my laptop and it allows me to compose or reply to messages from either
PC.

I use a FastMail Guest account which allows me to use IMAP folders. The
"guest" account does not allow use of FastMail's SMTP servers, so I have set
Outlook up on two computers with two e-mail accounts on each: a POP3 account
that is included with my ISP's subscription and the Guest FastMail account.

My ISP's POP3 account forwards all mail to the FastMail (IMAP) account.
I want to be able to read new mail from either computer but I do not want to
have to "manage" filing the mail into folders and archiving it on two
different computers.

On the desktop, Outlook is set up to leave incoming mail in the IMAP Inbox.
An Outlook rule saves any outgoing mail to the IMAP Sent Items folder.

On the laptop, I created rules to move incoming mail to different Outlook
personal folders (junk, from senders, to senders, etc.), depending on
specific criteria.

Both computers use the ISP's SMTP server and therefore I set both of them as
the default account in Outlook.

The rules work when I run them individually. My problem is that Outlook
appears to apply the rules automatically only to the "default" Inbox i.e.
the
POP3 account which, because of mail forwarding, is always empty. I want
to apply them to the IMAP Inbox which "collects" all my mail and makes it
visible from either PC.

In the absence of a way to select which Inbox I want Outlook to apply the
rules to, a way of "selecting all" the rules in the "Run Rules Now"dialog
box would make it easier to apply all my rules without having to check
multiple boxes.
 
newbie said:
I understand how IMAP works. That is why I use IMAP; because the files
reside on the server and that allows me to check e-mail from my desktop
or my laptop and it allows me to compose or reply to messages from either
PC.

I use a FastMail Guest account which allows me to use IMAP folders. The
"guest" account does not allow use of FastMail's SMTP servers, so I have
set
Outlook up on two computers with two e-mail accounts on each: a POP3
account
that is included with my ISP's subscription and the Guest FastMail
account.

My ISP's POP3 account forwards all mail to the FastMail (IMAP) account.
I want to be able to read new mail from either computer but I do not want
to
have to "manage" filing the mail into folders and archiving it on two
different computers.

On the desktop, Outlook is set up to leave incoming mail in the IMAP
Inbox.
An Outlook rule saves any outgoing mail to the IMAP Sent Items folder.

On the laptop, I created rules to move incoming mail to different Outlook
personal folders (junk, from senders, to senders, etc.), depending on
specific criteria.

Both computers use the ISP's SMTP server and therefore I set both of them
as
the default account in Outlook.

The rules work when I run them individually. My problem is that Outlook
appears to apply the rules automatically only to the "default" Inbox i.e.
the
POP3 account which, because of mail forwarding, is always empty. I want
to apply them to the IMAP Inbox which "collects" all my mail and makes it
visible from either PC.

In the absence of a way to select which Inbox I want Outlook to apply the
rules to, a way of "selecting all" the rules in the "Run Rules Now"dialog
box would make it easier to apply all my rules without having to check
multiple boxes.
Click to expand...

I hear what you say but Outlook will ONLY apply rules automatically to the
Personal Folders Inbox - just as it always has been in all versions of
Outlook and I don't think there's anyway of changing this.....
 
I hear what you say but Outlook will ONLY apply rules automatically to the
Personal Folders Inbox - just as it always has been in all versions of
Outlook and I don't think there's anyway of changing this.....
Click to expand...

Actually, I think I got it to work as I wanted it to. I now believe I
misstated the original problem.

I thought that Outlook was not applying the rules automatically because
perhaps it was only looking for the rules that pertained to the personal
folders. I studied the rules and noticed that the first rule was the Junk
mail rule which puts any incoming mail that is from a sender that is not in
my Contacts in a Junk folder and stops processing any more rules. I moved
the Junk rule to the bottom of the list of rules and all appears to be
working fine.

I think your assertion that "Outlook will ONLY apply rules automatically to
the Personal Folders Inbox - just as it always has been in all versions of
Outlook and I don't think there's anyway of changing this....." is not
correct. Outlook does apply the rules to the mail that flows into the IMAP
Inbox.
 
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