Anyone know a way to make Outlook

[JPnyc]

cease showing new mail notices on junk mail or mail that a rule deletes? This is driving me nuts. Adding mark read to the rules does just that, but it still gives the notices, and leaves the envelope in my systray.

[confus-ed]

Ha ... Billy is out to get you - I believe its a 'by design' feature

You just got mail did you not ? Outlook is too dumb to figure out that it just zapped them as the new mail notification fires before executing your rule set as you could have several mailboxes that any rule sets may send mail onwards to. (I think this is supposed to make sure that you are aware of all incoming mail incase any rule sets are 'overly aggressive' ).

Only way I know how to stop this is pre-filtering first by using some central mechanism to remove spam .. like an exchange server using outlook 'whatever' as a client might be generally be set up to do (or attempt to more accurately ! )

[confus-ed]

I take that back ! .. (sideways thinking engages )

Perhaps use more folders to seperate your mail in catergories & for each of the rules that move those items to those folders, play a different sound .. I just realised I did this ages agoon my machine at home !

So if I get junk mail I get a little 'uh-oh !' noise & if its from clients I get a little song ('you are in the money' ) & if its from one of my pals it plays another wav ('drink,drink,drink' etc ).. apparently you can also display a specific message or fire an application instead of a sound which might be much more suitable in an office environment.

[JPnyc]

Thank you Ian. Unfortunately we don't have speakers at work so sounds won't be heard. I'm trying out an Outlook add-on called Spamfighter today. There are apparently a number of such add-ons. I intend to try em all, if need be.

I know that mail was just received but as part of the rule I have mark them read and delete them. The deleted folder shows no new mail, as is proper, but the new mail notice (the envelope) remains in the systray. Thunderbird had the same problem, and at roughly 9 or 10x the resource usage.

[confus-ed]

I'm being confus-ed (well not clear) ..sorry.

If you turn off the general mail notification feature

Turn on or off Desktop Alerts


On the Tools menu, click Options.
On the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options, and then click Advanced E-mail Options.
Under When new items arrive in my Inbox, clear the Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only) check box.
To resume displaying Desktop Alerts, select the Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only) check box.

Note To suppress other notifications (playing sounds, changing the mouse pointer, or displaying an envelope icon in the notification area), clear the Play a sound, Briefly change the mouse cursor, or Show an envelope icon in the notification area check box.

& then you modify all your transfer rules to display messages when they hit whatever box you are transfering them to.

[JPnyc]

Ah, I only knew of the overall alerts. I didn't realize it had specific alerts per folder. In fact, I have been into the advanced email options and I didn't see any such option. What version are you using? I just checked mine from office 2003 and it has no such option. It just says when a message arrives, doesn't specify arrives where.

At work our version 2000 has even fewer features. Mark Read isn't even among the rule options.

[confus-ed]

Using office 2003 over here too ... I can see 'em !

What I do is move everything from my inbox to individual folders, so I have a wd folder, mates folder & then zillions of client folders & a whole load of rules to move everything into each, so when I wrote all these transfer rules not only did I tick the 'move it to the specified folder' but I also ticked the 'display a specific message in the new alert window' option too, which has the effect of adding an 'and' condition in my rule (& a sound rule too, but I'll leave that out to make it a bit simpler).

I have lots of rules, that all sort of go :- 'if from blob then move to blob folder & display blob alert'.

So I'm not looking for any 'arrival event' - the trigger event is outlook delivering to the inbox.

[JPnyc]

Yeah me too, I have folders for half the people in the company, including Rich, your admin here. But nowhere in the advanced options (or anywhere else) can I find the setting you speak of. Anyway I'm at work now and I'm pretty sure 2000 hasn't got it.

I'm currently test-driving this.

[confus-ed]

... But nowhere in the advanced options (or anywhere else) can I find the setting you speak of...

The quotes direct from office 2003 help.

Maybe this picture might help ?



Edit: left my own personal email details in on the flipping picture ! Time for that joke ,... confus-ed again ! - that's the kind of thing gets you loads of spam ! Ah this name covers a multitude of sins, I'm very pleased to say

[JPnyc]

Yeah that helps tremendously. It shows conclusively that we're not using the same version LOL. I don't have the same 2nd screen there that you do. It's similar, but definitely doesn't include that feature.

[JPnyc]

Just in case you're interested, the answer to this problem WAS Thunderbird. Seems I made an error in configuration the 1st time. One must create a Junk folder before activating the junk mail filter, or the necessary binding doesn't exist.

[confus-ed]

Just in case you're interested..

I always like to hear that someones figured something out

Thinking about this, I'm really surprised you can't just hit one tick box in outlook for this - it'd be a whole load easier - you are 100% on that one

[JPnyc]

Well apparently you can in the version you have, but in mine, in the center of the advanced window, you have 4 checkboxes where my version has only 3. Thanks for your efforts though.

[Zonie]

If you are wanting a good spam filter for outlook, I have found SamBayes add-in to be pretty decent.

[JPnyc]

Thanks, I'll take a look at it. Thunderbird's working very well in that respect, but it lacks some of outlook's other features, like auto reply, and a couple others.