Can I set Outlook Express to ignore people not in my contacts?

One approach to reducing the amount of spam you have to deal with might be to apply some rules to your incoming email. It might be tempting to simply delete email from anyone you don't know, but that's harsh, and can result in losing emails you actually wanted to receive anyway.

But it's certainly easy to set up a rule to help prioritize the email you're getting so you can look at the email from people you know quickly without being forced to wade through a ton of spam to do it.

That's what we'll do.

In Outlook Express, set up a message rule by clicking on Tools, Message Rules, Mail.... Several possible "Conditions" for the rule are listed, and for this example we'll select "Where the From line contains people". Once selected, then in the rule description box you can click on the underlined "contains people" to actually specify which people or email addresses you want this rule to apply to. It pops up the address book, and you can select one, several, or all of the addresses listed there.

One key change before leaving the "Select People" dialog, is to click on Options and change the rule to apply only if the message does not contain one of the email addresses you've selected - in this example, implying that it's someone you don't know.

The Actions for the rule will be to "Move it to the specified folder". Once again in the rule description box you can click on the underlined "specified folder", and actually specify the folder you want these emails to be moved to.

That's a rule. Now, when email arrives that is not from one of the people you've specified, then it'll be moved to the folder you indicated. People you know will be left in your inbox.

The process for Outlook 2003 is similar. Select Tools, Rules and Alerts, and New Rule. I find starting from a blank rule a little easier to grasp, so select that and leave the default to "Check messages when they arrive".

Outlook allows you to reference the entire contents of an address book in a rule, so for this example, I'd select "sender is in specified Address Book" as the condition for the rule. You'll then need to click on the underlined "specified" in the rule description to select the address book, typically your Outlook Contacts folder.

In the next step of Outlook's rule wizard you can select the action to take, for example once again moving the messages to a specified folder. Unfortunately Outlook doesn't appear to allow us to say "if not in my address book", so in this case I'd create a folder to automatically receive the email from my address book contacts. That could then be the folder to pay attention to for incoming mail, which all other email from people you don't know would remain in your inbox.

My Warning as tempting as it may seem, I strongly recommend you not automatically delete email from addresses you don't know. There are simply too many cases where this could cause you a problem. A friend could change an email address. You may place an order on-line and would be sent an email confirmation that you need to respond to which would be sent from an address you don't know. Your long lost cousin, or a (legitimate) business contact may send email before you even know they're going to.

The bottom line is that rules are great ways to prioritize your email. By identifying email from people you know, you can give them the attention they're due. Everything else can wait - perhaps once a week or when your expecting something, you can scroll through the list of "other" email, and decide if there's anything worth reading or worth adding to your address book.

I've teamed up with Lockergnome to create weekly video tips. Managing Email with Outlook Rules will walk you through the examples I've outlined above and show you how to set up those rules.