Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.

Outlook can be configured to access multiple email accounts, but by default throws all email into a single inbox. Outlook rules can help.

How do I configure Outlook 2003 to have a separate set of personal folders for each email account? For example, I want a separate inbox, outbox, etc. for each email provider that I have any account with.

Right now I receive emails from two separate email accounts in the same inbox. I suspect it's because they are both POP3 accounts. I want to direct each account's incoming and outgoing messages to its own set of folders.

There's actually no inherent support for specifically this in Outlook.

But the good news is that for your inbox and sent mail folders, we can simulate it using Outlook's very powerful "Rules" feature.

For this example, I'll create two email accounts: business@ and personal@ my company domain. It's probably not that uncommon a scenario to have separate addresses for business and personal use. Here's what you might see in Outlook's Tools, Email accounts... list of existing accounts:

Business and personal accounts listed in Outlook

I'll also create the two sets of folders. We'll use the default Inbox for the default business account, and create a second "Inbox - Personal" for the personal account. Similarly I'll use the default "Sent Mail" for business, and "Sent Mail - Personal" for the personal account. Here's the folder list with the folders set up:

Outlook folder list with separate inbox and sent mail folders

Now we'll use Rules to direct incoming and outgoing mail into the correct folders.

Click on the Tools menu, Rules and Alerts... item, and then click on New Rule. You should be presented with this dialog:

Outlook New Rule wizard start

We'll Start from a blank rule, and Check messages when they arrive:

Outlook New Rule wizard - check messages when they arrive

Click Next. It's on this dialog that the magic happens:

Outlook New Rule Wizard - through the specified account

On this screen of the wizard, we've selected through the specified account. Having done so, you can now click on the word specified in the Edit the Rule Description lower box, and you'll get this box to choose which account you want this rule to act on:

Outlook New Rule wizard - choose account dialog

Since in this example we're setting up a rule for our personal email, we'll select that account and press OK. You'll see the account updated in the Edit the Rule Description box.

Press Next to move on, and you'll get this next page of the wizard:

Outlook New Rule wizard - move to folder option

Here you can see I've clicked on "move it to the specified folder" as the action to take. Once again, in the lower box we can then click on the underlined word specified to get this:

Outlook New Rule wizard - folder choice

Here we can select which folder we want mail to be moved to. I'll click on Inbox - Personal for my personal mail, click OK and then Next to move on.

The next screen of the wizard allows you to specify exceptions. We don't have any, so press Next to move on.

Finally, we get a summary of the new rule we just created:

Outlook New Rule wizard - final summary

The result is that when new mail is received on the personal account it will automatically be moved to the personal inbox. Email received on other accounts, namely the business account, will remain in the default inbox.

For your sent mail, you can follow a similar set of steps:

  • Check messages after sending

  • through the personal account

  • move a copy to the personal sent items folder

  • no exceptions

As you've seen as we've moved through the process, the rules you can define can be quite complex and based on many conditions other than just the account being used. But this should serve as a start to help you get your email organized.

Article C2977 - March 28, 2007 « »

Share this article with your friends:

Share this article on Facebook Tweet this article Email a link to this article
Leo Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.

Not what you needed?

Recent Comments
29 Comments
Dom
June 6, 2011 5:30 AM

you can display two inbox folders simultaneously if they are on a microsoft exchange account.

Depends entirely on what email program you use.
Leo
06-Jun-2011

Tushar
February 2, 2012 1:14 AM

Hi I need an answer on Microsoft outlook 2007. My problem is everyone send me email but it isn't stored in my inbox folder, it is stored in sent item folder.Please full fill my query on problem.

Regards
Tushar

Amy
March 26, 2012 3:29 PM

Thank you! I've used rules for a long time, but the "through the specified account" feature had always eluded me. It took minutes to solve a problem that has been nagging me for a while.

Jemima
May 23, 2012 12:52 AM

Thanks for the article, that was very clear. I have more than 2 email accounts and was looking for a way to send/receive in a particular order. How do I do that? I tried the up and down buttons in the Account Settings window but made no difference. Thank you!

I'm not aware of a way to reliably control the order other than manually checking each in turn.
Leo
23-May-2012
Roy
February 9, 2013 2:12 PM

Wow - you rock. I did the blank rule Inbox and Sent Items thing. Perfect thank you. Roy