Sort rules on alphabetical order

[Henk]

Is it possible to sort rules in Outlook on alphabetical order?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Sure, manually but what are you trying to achieve with that?

They are sorted in logical order; the order in which you want to execute
them. Since you are free to name the rules whatever you like, you can of
course rename them to something that would be alphabetical in order.

 

[David J]

Not a helpful response.

I also would like to sort the rules. Order of execution is less important
to me than the ease with which I can add new addressees to existing rules.
To do that, I have to find the rule amongst the many rules I have established
to manage my complicated life.

So please answer the question rather than posing one of your own.

Is it possible to sort the rules list alphabetically - possibly using a
macro - and, if not, please can it be added to future versions of Outlook
even if it is too late for 2003.

 

[Dave Lapierre]

I completely understand what this person is trying to do as I have the same
issue. I only use the rules to sort my email as it arrives. For example I
have several rules that move emails into a "travel" folder. I have one for
United Airlines, one for Jet Blue etc and each rule puts mail into a folder
called "travel" In retrospec I could have created one giant rule called
Travel where it is the logical or of a bunce of items but I did not think to
set it up that way.

What happens is that every once in a while I essentially duplicate the logic
of a rule by accident. This happens for instance when I have a rule for that
checks for an email with the words "united.com" in the sender address and
then I have another rule for that does the same for "ual.com" Then United
Airlines launches some marketing promo campeign with an address such as
ual.united.com and my rules end up making two copied of the email in my
travel folder. At that point I want to search all my rules and clean up the
duplication but this is difficult as my rules are all in a random order.
Just like the original post I don't care at all about the order my rules are
applied.

 

[Bob I]

The order they are listed in is the order that they will run. If you
don't care about the order in which they run you may move them into any
order you want. They will still run in the order that they are listed.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

I completely understand what this person is trying to do as I have the same
issue. I only use the rules to sort my email as it arrives. For example I
have several rules that move emails into a "travel" folder. I have one for
United Airlines, one for Jet Blue etc and each rule puts mail into a folder
called "travel" In retrospec I could have created one giant rule called
Travel where it is the logical or of a bunce of items but I did not think to
set it up that way.

For many rules, it won't matter how you've listed them but for some, execution
order is crucial and moving one rule to a different position in relation to
another can alter what the rules do.

The MVP Summit is being held in Seattle right now and one MVP is bringing a
list of requests for things to implement in Outlook 2010. On that list is a
rules editor. Perhaps it will eventually make it into Outlook.