Creating a junk mail (spam) filtering rule in Outlook 2003

  1. Launch Outlook. Click Tools, Rules and Alerts…

    Launch Outlook. Click Tools, Rules and Alerts

  2. Click “New Rule…” within the Rules and Alerts window.

  3. Select “Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder”, then click Next at the bottom of the window.

    Select "Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder"

  4. Confirm that “with specific words in the subject” is checked as shown below, then click “specific words” near the bottom.

    Confirm that "with specific words" is in the subject.

  5. Type [SPAM], then click the “Add” button. The word must be in all capital letters, with the square brackets exactly as shown below.

    Type [Spam]

  6. “[SPAM]” should now appear within the “Search list” area. Click OK.

  7. In the Rules Wizard window, click the word “specified” in the bottom area.

    In the Rules Wizard window, click the word “specified” in the bottom area.

  8. Scroll through the list of folders to see if one named “Junk E-mail” already exists. If it does, select it and click OK.

  9. If the folder is not in the list, click “New” to create a folder. Enter a name for the folder – it can be “Spam” or “Junk E-mail”, or anything similar. The “Folder contains” selection should read “Mail and Post Items”. Click on a selection for where to place the folder, then click “OK”.

    Create Spam folder “Mail and Post Items”.

  10. Confirm your settings by reviewing the Rules Wizard window – see above right.

  11. Click the Next button 3 times until the screen says “Finish rule setup.” at the top. Outlook will choose a name for the rule. This can be changed to meet your preferences. If there is existing Spam in your Inbox, check the box next to “Run this rule now on messages already in Inbox”. Click the “Finish” button to complete the process.

    Click the “Finish” button to complete the process.