I had a question that came up recently in one of my Outlook training classes,
and that is,
"How can I create a rule that will find messages from a particular sender that
are over 10 days old and then ideally move them to another folder?" So
the answer to the question is actually not a rule because that primarily works
with incoming messages. Instead, we'll build a search folder.
Check out my video in this channel to learn more about search folders,
or look at the link up above. For this, then,
I want a search folder that will locate all the messages from Alex that are over
10 days old or whatever timeframe you want to set. To begin the search folder,
we'll start in the Folder tab > New Search Folder,
and we'll pick a custom search folder. I'll pick Choose, and first of all,
I'll just call this Alex. Now I could be more specific with it.
And I'll make it 10 days or older. But with us, we're going to add criteria.
Before I do that, though,
I want it to only look in the Inbox and not any other folder. That is,
although the search folder won't move the messages, once I move them,
I don't want them to keep coming up in the search. So we'll choose here.
Browse > pick Inbox,
and uncheck subfolders.
So if I've moved it to another folder under the inbox,
that will not be included.
So that's being more specific if that's where you want to target the search.
Next is my criteria. It will be from Alex.
We could type in the email or pick it from a list.
And then explore other options for timeframes.
This option might address your needs, perhaps it's received,
and then you can choose from some of the other options here.
But we have something pretty specific,
so I'll keep this clear and instead go to Advanced.
The field I want is the Date/Time fields for
Received. And the condition here, we have all sorts of options here.
On or before, between. I'll choose on or before. Now,
how I specify the current date is date, open,
close parentheses like a function, and that would be the current date.
So I can continue running this in the future and then enter in minus 10
if it's okay to include 10 days or older where it's going to be anything
older than 10 days, then that would be 11 for this.
Then I'll go ahead and add that to the list.
And we can have other criteria here as well. But that's all I need.
That is Alex, and anything that was received on or before the current date,
minus 11. So OK, and OK, and continue back.
So some of my newer messages won't be there,
but these older messages will come up in that search.
The next step is a manual move, but there are ways to make this a bit faster.
So I have a folder that is Alex-Archive.
I will just right-click and add it to my Favorites folders,
and we can move this to whatever priority I want for that amongst the other
folders in my Favorites. Now, when I have this search,
we'll simply CTRL + A to Select All,
and then I can drag and move these.
Or we have the option to move that as well from the Ribbon or even to
right-click and move here as well. So with that,
then if I have it in my Favorites, I can drag that. If you find this is easier,
this would be another option.
And now I have moved those out of the Inbox into another folder
for anything that is over 10 days.
So you can put in your own criteria for that.
You can even take this folder to this search,
which is now showing up in my Search Folders.
I can even take this right-click this and add it to my Favorites.
So at any time I can run it. And then if I have results from that,
then move those options to the Alex-Archive.
I hope that helps you to explore more of the options in working with search
folders, especially when you want them to be date specific. For more tips,
on being productive with Microsoft Outlook or to sign up for my tips newsletter,
visit TheSoftwarePro.com/Outlook. If this training was helpful,
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