How to filter external emails automatically in Outlook?

Author Kelly Last modified 2025-04-17

Let’s say your company assign you an email account for working. Apart from working emails from your colleagues, you may also receive many external emails. For some Outlook users, most of external emails are junks, and they are quite annoying. Here I will talk about how to filter external emails automatically for a certain mail folder in Outlook.

The following method is about a rule to filter all external email messages from a certain mail folder in Outlook.

Step 1: Shift to the Mail view, open the specified mail folder, and click "Rules" > "Manage Rules & Alerts" on the "Home" tab.

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Note: In Outlook 2007, you can click "Tools" > "Rules and Alerts".

Step 2: In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click the "New Rule" button.

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Step 3: In the Rules Wizard dialog box, click to highlight the "Apply rule on messages I receive" (or "Check messages when they arrive" in Outlook 2007), and click the "Next" button.

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Step 4: In the second Rules Wizard dialog box,

(1) Check the option of "with specific words in the sender’s address";

(2) Click the "Specific words" to open the Search Text dialog box;

(3) In the Search Text dialog box, enter "@" in the first box, click the "Add" button, and then click the "OK" button.

(4) Click the "Next" button.

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Step 5: In the third Rules Wizard dialog box,

(1) Check the option of "move it to the specified folder";

(2) Click the text of "specified";

(3) In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, select the folder that you will move external emails to, and then click the "OK" button.

(4) Click the "Next" button.

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Step 6: In the fourth Rules Wizard dialog box,

(1) Check the option of "except with specific words in the sender’s address";

(2) Click the text of "specific words";

(3) In the Search Text, enter "@yourdomain.com" into the first box, click the "Add" button, then click the "OK" button.

Note: Change the "@yourdomain.com" as your own email domain.

(4) Click the "Next" button.

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Step 7: Now in the last dialog box, enter a name for this rule in the Step 1 box, check the option of "Run this rule now on messages already in “Inbox”", and then click the "Finish" button.

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