Mail Rules

A mail rule watches your Inbox and acts on messages that match what you describe — filing newsletters into a folder, marking a mailing list as read, deleting something you never want to see.

Open the Rules Manager from the Tools menu (Ctrl+Shift+L) or the command palette. A message open in its own window has the same Tools → Rules… and key; from there the Rules Manager opens on that message’s account, and closing it returns you to the message. It lists the selected account’s rules, and beside the list a Rule detail pane reads out the selected rule in full: what it applies to, and what it does. Rules are written in a separate editor window. New (Ctrl+N) opens it for a new rule, and Edit — or Enter on a rule in the list — opens it for the selected one. It is the same window whatever kind of account you have; it shows what the selected account supports.

Client-side and server-side. A rule QuickMail runs itself is a client-side rule: it is stored on this computer and it acts on your mail while QuickMail is open. A work or school account added with the Microsoft 365 (Graph) connection method can also carry server-side rules, which your mail provider runs for you whether QuickMail is open or not — see Microsoft 365: server-side rules. Every other account has client-side rules only, including a work or school account you added over Standard IMAP/SMTP. Each row in the rules list is marked on client or on server, and the status line says which kinds the selected account can have, so neither is ever a guess.

One account at a time. When you have more than one account, the Rules Manager opens on a single account chosen in an Account list at the top, rather than listing every account’s rules together. Choose the account whose rules you want, and the list below shows just that mailbox’s rules. If you have only one account there is no picker. It opens on the account you were in; see Rules belong to one account. This is the first thing to notice if you are used to seeing every account’s rules in one list: your rules are not gone, they are behind the account picker. The status line just below the picker says how many rules the account has, where they run, and which kinds that account can have — so an empty list is never a mystery. As you move through the Account list, each account also says how many rules it has (a status announcement, so it follows your Announce status setting). F6 cycles the panes — account list, rules, details, status line — so it reaches the status line and reads it back at any time.

What a rule is made of

The editor has the same parts whichever kind of rule you are writing.

• Rule name — how you recognize it in the list. A rule must have one.
• Enabled — turn a rule off without deleting it.
• Apply when a message matches — Sender contains and Subject contains. Each condition is switched on by the checkbox in front of it: check the ones you want and type the text to look for. A new rule starts with none of them checked — Enabled is the only box ticked — so the conditions a rule tests are the ones you asked for. Until a condition is checked its box is read-only and skipped by Tab, so the order is: check the condition, then Tab into its box and type. A message must satisfy every condition you checked, so leaving one unchecked is how you say “don’t care”. Matching ignores case. The contains conditions look for your text anywhere in the field, so Sender contains matches part of a sender’s name as readily as an address. From addresses and Sent to addresses are for email addresses, and each takes more than one, separated by commas — a message matches when it has any one of them. Use Sender contains where your text is not an address, or holds a comma. The choice is inside that one condition; the conditions themselves are still all required. A client-side rule’s Body contains and Subject or body contains look at the start of the message that QuickMail keeps as its preview, not the whole message. Clearing a checkbox leaves the text sitting in its box, now read-only and skipped by Tab, so a condition you turned off is one keystroke from being turned back on rather than something you have to retype.
• Then do this — Move to folder, Mark as read, Delete, and Stop processing more rules. Delete moves the message to the account’s Trash, which Microsoft 365 calls Deleted Items. Choosing Move to folder adds a Choose folder… button; the button then shows the folder you picked. The picker is the same folder tree used everywhere else you choose a destination, showing the folders of the rule’s own account — a rule files mail within one mailbox. It opens on the folder the rule already files into, or on the first folder for a new rule. If the folder you want to file into does not exist yet, activate New Folder (or Alt+N) in the picker to create one under the selected folder and target it without leaving the rule you are writing. The button is not offered for a POP3 account, which has no server folders to create, nor for a rule QuickMail cannot tie to one account — a rule that has no account of its own, or an account whose folders have not been read yet. The picker then falls back to showing every account, where a folder created under the selected node could land in a different mailbox from the one the rule files in; you can still pick an existing folder there.
• Advanced conditions & actions — more conditions (From addresses, Sent to addresses, Subject or body contains, Body contains, Sent to me, Sent only to me, Has attachments, and Importance is) and more actions (Mark as unread, Copy to folder, Set importance to, and Forward to). The section starts collapsed for a new rule, and opens by itself when you edit a rule that uses anything in it, so editing never hides a field that is in use.

Save stores the rule and closes the editor; Cancel closes it without saving. A Move to folder, Copy to folder or Delete rule needs at least one condition — with none it would act on every message — so QuickMail will not save it until you add one. Mark as read and Mark as unread rules can have none.

What a client-side rule can use. A client-side rule can test From addresses, Subject contains, Sender contains, Sent to addresses, Subject or body contains, Body contains, and Has attachments. From addresses and Sent to addresses each take several addresses, and Sender contains can be used together with From addresses, in which case both have to match. It has a single subject condition, so Subject contains and Subject or body contains cannot both be used in one rule; Save says so if you try. It can Mark as read or Mark as unread, Copy to folder, and Move to folder or Delete, and it can do more than one of them — but not mark a message both read and unread, or both move and delete it. It does them in that order: marking first, then copying, then moving or deleting, since after that the message is no longer in the Inbox. Mark as unread changes only this computer’s copy of the message, so it cannot be combined with moving or deleting, which would throw that copy away and the mark with it. A client-side rule cannot copy into the Inbox either: it runs on the Inbox, so each copy would be copied again on the next check. Everything else in the editor needs a server-side rule: Sent to me, Sent only to me, Importance is, Set importance to, Forward to, and Stop processing more rules. Mark as unread is the reverse — only a client-side rule can do it, which is why its label says so. Editing never changes a rule’s kind, so a client-side rule stays client-side. Where a rule cannot become a server-side one, the editor turns those options off rather than offering them: on an account that has client-side rules only, and while you edit a rule that already runs in QuickMail, since editing never changes a rule’s kind. A line under Enabled says which of the two it is and names the options concerned; it is a Tab stop while it is there, so you meet it on the way through the form. Turned-off options are skipped by Tab, so you will not meet them while moving through the form. On a Microsoft 365 account a new rule still offers them — choosing one there is what makes the rule server-side. Save still refuses the combinations no client-side rule can hold, and names them: Subject contains with Subject or body contains, and Move to folder with Delete. While you edit a server-side rule, Mark as unread is unavailable, because the server has no way to do it.

The order rules run in. Every enabled rule for the account is tried, and each one that matches acts. Server-side rules run on the server as mail is delivered, in the order the list shows; Move Up and Move Down change it, and Stop processing more rules tells the server to skip the server-side rules after it. Client-side rules run when QuickMail sees the mail, in the order they were created, and cannot be reordered. A client-side rule that moves or deletes a message takes it out of the running for the client-side rules after it, both on mail as it arrives and when you use Run on Existing Mail.

When rules run

Rules run on your Inbox, on mail as it arrives — including mail that arrives while QuickMail is sitting open, not only at a full sync. A rule runs on a message when it arrives, however QuickMail first picks it up: the background check, or opening the Inbox a moment before that check comes round. If the Inbox is open when a matching message lands, the message can appear in the list for a moment before the rule acts on it. Rules only ever run on your Inbox, and this is deliberate: a rule never reaches back into Sent, Archive, Junk, Trash, or a folder you filed something into by hand, so nothing you deliberately put somewhere is moved or deleted behind your back. Mail already in the mailbox before a rule existed is left alone too, and so is older mail QuickMail shows for the first time because you widened the Sync range.

To apply your rules to mail that is already there, use Run on Existing Mail. It runs the selected account’s enabled client-side rules over that account’s Inbox — again, the Inbox only — across the mail QuickMail has stored locally, and tells you how many messages were moved or deleted. (Marking read or unread and copying still happen; they are not counted.) An account whose Inbox QuickMail has not read yet in this session is skipped rather than guessed at, and the skip is noted in the log.

Rules belong to one account

Each rule watches one account: the one chosen in the Rules Manager’s Account list when you create it. The editor has no account field of its own, so to write a rule for another account, choose that account in the list first. Changing the list while the editor is open doesn’t move the rule: when you save, the list goes back to the rule’s account and selects it, and the status line starts by saying so, for example “Rule saved to Home.” The Rules Manager opens on the account you were in. From a view that spans accounts, such as All Inboxes, it opens on your default account — the one marked with Set Default in Account Manager. A rule made with Create Rule from Message belongs to that message’s account. Shared mailboxes are not in the list, because their rules are managed in Outlook; if you open the Rules Manager from one, it shows your default account instead, names that account in its title, and says why on its status line. See Shared mailboxes.

If you had rules from an earlier version that applied to all accounts, QuickMail converts each one into a separate rule for every account that is not connected through Microsoft 365 directly, the first time it starts, so they keep doing what they did there. An old rule is never copied onto a Microsoft 365 mailbox, so it cannot start acting on one without your say-so; in a profile whose only accounts are Microsoft 365, it is dropped and the reason is written to the log.

Reading the rules list

The list shows one account at a time, so a row does not repeat the account: it says the rule’s name, where it runs, and whether it is enabled. Turn on Show field labels in the rules list in Settings → General → Screen Reader Announcements to hear those pieces named (“Rule … runs … status …”) rather than run together.

In the list, Enter edits the selected rule, Space turns it on or off, and Delete deletes it after asking. The buttons below the list are New, Edit, Delete, Enable or Disable, Move Up, Move Down, Test, Run on Existing Mail, and Close; most are on the list’s context menu as well, and every one is in the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P). Escape closes the window.

Test runs the selected client-side rule against the messages that were in the message list when you opened the Rules Manager, and says how many of them it would match, so you can check a rule before letting it loose. Only messages in the rule’s own account are counted, because the rule never acts on any others.

Creating a Rule from a Message

Select a message and choose Create Rule from Message (Ctrl+Shift+T) from the Message menu, the context menu or the command palette. In a message open in its own window it is on that window’s Message menu, key and command palette, and uses the message the window is showing. QuickMail opens a new rule pre-filled from that message: the sender is filled in and its condition is checked, so the rule matches everything from that sender. The subject is filled in too, but its condition starts unchecked — a rule that has to match one sender and one exact subject line matches, in practice, only the conversation you made it from. If you did want the subject as well, check its box; the text is already there. This does not work on a message in a shared mailbox, whose rules are managed in Outlook; see Shared mailboxes.

Microsoft 365: server-side rules

If you have a work or school Microsoft 365 (Exchange) account, the Rules Manager does a little more. Alongside your client-side rules, it shows the server-side rules on your Exchange mailbox — the same rules Outlook calls “Inbox rules.” A server rule runs on Microsoft’s servers, so it acts on your mail even when QuickMail is closed, and it applies wherever you read that mailbox.

Server-side rules are an organization feature, so personal Outlook.com, Hotmail, and Live.com accounts do not have them — even when connected through Microsoft 365 directly. For a personal account the Rules Manager shows only client-side rules, the same as any other non-Exchange account.

One list, marked where each rule runs. For a work or school account, server-side and client-side rules appear together in a single list. Each row says where the rule runs — on server or on client — along with its name and whether it is enabled. Creating, editing, enabling or disabling, and deleting all work the same way whichever kind a rule is; only server-side rules can be reordered. The status line counts them the same way — “4 rules: 3 on server, 1 on client” — so which kinds an account is holding is on screen, and F6 cycles round to read it back. If one kind can’t be loaded, the status line says so and counts only the kind that did.

QuickMail chooses where a new rule lives. When you create a rule, QuickMail saves it as a server rule whenever it can, so it keeps working while QuickMail is closed. A rule that needs something only QuickMail can do — today that is Mark as unread — is saved as a client-side rule instead. On a work or school account, which does also do server rules, QuickMail announces that when it happens; the saved rule’s own row says on client either way, so where it went is there to read whether or not you have announcements turned on.

Some server rules cannot be edited here. A rule you built in Outlook may use conditions or actions QuickMail cannot yet represent exactly. Rather than risk turning it into something you did not intend, QuickMail turns Edit off for that rule, and the detail pane says why. You can still read it, turn it on or off, reorder it, and delete it; change the rule itself in Outlook. A rule the server marks read-only is different: it cannot be changed here at all, so Edit, Delete, Enable or Disable, and Move are all turned off.

Testing. Test works on client-side rules only; for a server rule the Test control is turned off, the same way Edit and Delete are for a read-only rule — a server rule runs in Exchange, so there is nothing local to test it against.

Run on Existing Mail. This applies the selected account’s client-side rules to the mail already in its Inbox — matching the one-account-at-a-time layout, so it never acts on rules for an account you are not looking at. It is available only when that account has at least one enabled client-side rule; a Microsoft 365 account whose rules are all server-side has nothing for it to do (server rules run in Exchange and cannot be applied to existing mail from here), so the control is turned off in that case.

What your organization may need to allow. For most work or school accounts, an administrator has to permit QuickMail to read and change your mailbox rules before this works. If that permission is not in place, you will see a message about it rather than your server rules; ask your administrator to grant QuickMail access.