Microsoft thought they were being helpful when they set up notifications for new email. However, a constant barrage of notifications can also disrupt your train of thought. You can turn the notifications off completely, or–better yet–you can set up Outlook to only notify you about important emails.
How to Create a Simple Rule
Summary: The guide highlights the common reasons that result in duplication of email messages in Outlook 2016 and describes the best ways to resolve an email replication issue without affecting the smooth functionality of the mailbox.
RELATED:How to Disable Desktop Notifications in Outlook 2013
If you need to be responsive to certain people, such as clients, your boss, or your family members, you can use Rules in Outlook to receive notifications about certain messages only. Here’s how to set up a rule that only shows email notifications from a certain sender.
The easiest way to set up this rule is to find an email from that person. For this example, I’ll set up a rule to notify me when I receive an email from my boss, because emails from your boss are always important, right? So, I’d right-click on the email from How-To Geek’s editor-in-chief, Whitson Gordon, and select “Rules” and then “Create Rule” from the popup menu.
In the “Create Rule” dialog box, select the conditions on which you want to receive notifications about new email. I want to get immediate notifications about emails I receive from Whitson, so I select the first check box.
I also select the “Sent to” check box and make sure my name is selected from the drop-down list, so I’ll receive notifications for emails sent from Whitson directly to me. If you don’t want to be notified of emails where you’re CC’ed or one of several recipients, select “me only” from the “Sent to” drop-down list. Click “OK” once you’ve made your choices.
A “Success” dialog box displays with an option to “Run this rule now on messages already in the current folder”. Click “OK”. I want to find out what emails are in my inbox from Whitson, so I select the check box.
The “New Mail Alerts” dialog box will appear, demanding immediate action. I currently only have one email from Whitson in my inbox, so that’s the only one listed on this dialog box. However, if there were more emails from Whitson, they would all be listed here. If you want to view an email directly from this dialog box, select the email to view and click “Open Item”. Click “Close” to close the dialog box.
The “New Mail Alerts” dialog box stays open until you click “Close”, even when you open an email message from the dialog box and then close the message.
How to Create More Advanced Rules
When creating rules, you can select from additional, more specific options than are available on the main “Create Rule” dialog box. To do so, open the “Create Rule” dialog box, as described earlier in this article. Then click “Advanced Options”.
The first screen on the “Rules Wizard” dialog box displays a list of detailed conditions to check. Select the check boxes for the conditions you want to check for email notifications. I want to receive notifications when I receive emails from Whitson sent only to me, so I select those conditions.
The blue underlined text are links you click to specify the value(s) you want checked for in that condition. Once you select that condition, click the blue link on that condition in the “Step 2” box to edit the values.
Once you’ve selected the conditions you want to check, click “Next”.
Now, select options to indicate what should be done with a message you receive that matches the selected conditions. You can do things like move the message to a specific folder, forward it to one or more people, reply using a template, or mark it as read. I want to receive a Desktop Alert when I get an email message from Whitson, so I select the last option on the list, “display a Desktop Alert”. Once you’ve selected what you want done with the message, click “Next”.
The next screen provides options for setting exceptions to the rule, such as if you don’t want to get a notification if the message is a meeting invitation or update. Choose any exceptions you want to apply to your rule and click “Next”. I don’t want any exceptions, so I just click “Next” to skip this screen.
The last screen allows you to specify a name for the rule, and set up some rule options, including one to “Turn on this rule” immediately. If you want to run the rule immediately on messages already in the inbox, select the “Run this rule now on messages already in ‘Inbox’”.
Review the rule description under “Step 3” and click “Finish” when you’re done.
Now, when I receive an email from Whitson, a desktop alert displays on the Windows desktop. Note that this is different from the “New Mail Alerts” dialog box–instead, it’s a native Windows notification. If you prefer this style of notification, you’ll have to go through “Advanced Options” for every rule you create”.
How to Edit Your Rules
Modifying, deleting, or even temporarily turning off your rules is easy. I want to modify my rule to display the “New Mail Alerts” dialog box rather than a “Desktop Alert”. To do this, I click the “Home” tab.
Click the “Rules” button in the “Move” section and select “Manage Rules & Alerts” from the drop-down menu.
The “Rules and Alerts” dialog box displays. On the “E-mail Rules” tab, click “Change Rule” and select “Edit Rule Settings” from the drop-down menu.
As discussed earlier, the first screen of the “Rules Wizard” displays a list of conditions you can check for on incoming email messages. The selections I made when I first set up the rule display at the top of the list and the description with the current settings displays in the box under “Step 2”. I don’t want to change the conditions, so I click “Next”. If you want to change the conditions on your rule, make your changes and then click “Next”.
On the screen listing the actions to take on incoming email messages (depending on the conditions), I disable the “display a Desktop Alert” option, which displays at the top of the list, and then click “Next”.
Let’s say you want to display the more in-your-face “New Mail Alerts” dialog box instead. Scroll down to the bottom of the list of actions and select “display a specific message in the New Item Alert window” check box. To customize the message that displays on the “New Mail Alerts” dialog box, click the “a specific message” link in the box under “Step 2”.
On the “Alert Message” dialog box, enter a message to display on the “New Mail Alerts” dialog box and click “OK”.
If you want to add or remove any exceptions, click “Next” to access the list of exceptions and make your changes. To change the name of the rule or change other options on the last screen of the “Rules Wizard”, click “Next” again on the exceptions screen. I don’t want to change anything else, so I click “Finish” on the actions screen to accept my changes and close the “Rules Wizard”.
You’re returned to the “Rules and Alerts” dialog box. Click “OK” to close it. To run the rule immediately, click “Run Rules Now” at the top of the “E-mail Rules” tab.
On the “Run Rules Now” dialog box, in the “Select rules to run” box, select the check box for the rule you want to run and click “Run Now”.
NOTE: Once you’ve run the rule, the “Run Rules Now” dialog box does not close automatically. You must click “Close” to close it. The “Rules and Alerts” dialog box does not close automatically either, so click “OK” to close it.
The “New Mail Alerts” dialog box displays with your custom message at the top.
The Rules feature in Outlook provides many options for automatically handling your email messages. You can have specific messages moved into specific folders, perform actions on email messages with certain text in the subject line, or even delete messages automatically based on certain conditions. Outlook Rules may seem overwhelming at first because of all the options available. However, if you know how you want to manage certain email messages, it’s not that hard to create and manage your own rules.
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I know we're able to use Ctrl+Mouse Wheel to zoom in and out, but is there a way of permanently setting the default zoom for the reading pane?
Der HochstaplerIncoming Mail
Umber FerruleUmber Ferrule7 Answers
This looks to be linked to the DPI settings on your computer as well as the zoom level set in Outlook.
One thing could be to change the text size on the emails -
Customize the font size for Plain Text messages
For Plain Text you can modify the display font via
- Outlook 2007 and previous:
Tools → Options… → tab Mail Format → button Stationery and Fonts (or just Fonts… in previous versions of Outlook) - Outlook 2010:
File → Options → section Mail → button Stationery and Fonts
How to set the default zoom for incoming emails in MS Outlook 2010:
- Start - Microsoft Office - Tools and Microsoft Office - a digital certificate for the Project VBA, create a certificate with the name, for example, Zoom
- Start Outlook
- File - Options - Trust Center - Trust Center Settings - Options, select Macros, or 'notice for all macros' or 'notification for digitally signed macros, all unsigned macros are disabled'
- Alt+F11 - run the VBA Editor
- In the upper left window, click on the Draft Project - MS Outlook Object and double-click on ThisOutlookSession
- To the right opens a window (
View.Zoom.Percentage = 150 - scaleby default) - Tools - References, check Microsoft Word 14.0 Object Library
- F5 - come up with a name, for example, 'Zoom - Create'
- Tools - Digital Signature: select the signature that we have previously created with the name of Zoom
- File - save
- Alt+Q
- Restart Outlook
- Box appears with a request to add to the trusted zone certificate.
The Zoom level fixed appears to be fixed now in Outlook 2016. If you click on the zoom number in the lower right corner of your Outlook window, it will pop up a dialog.
Enter the desired zoom level, and click the box to save the preference. Walla! This will cure it for your messages in the reading pane.
CaldeiraGI am shocked that there isn't a better answer for Outlook 2010 on Windows 7, so I will be checking back. What I settled on is pretty poor: using the 'Make it easier to read what's on your screen' feature in Windows 7 and setting an overall magnification to 125%. Unfortunately, you have to log off and log back in in order to see the effect, which makes it a pain to experiment.
Read Incoming Email
This feature is accessed in Windows 7 by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting 'Screen resolution', and then clicking 'Make text and other items larger or smaller' near the bottom. There is also an option to 'Set custom text size (DPI)', but I didn't take the time to try it out. You can also access this dialog by typing 'Make it easier to read' into the control panel search.
I tried 150%, but this caused unacceptable degradation to fonts in certain programs, such as MATLAB. At 125%, I am unhappy with some of the effects, but it is a fair balance to be able to read my email without zooming on every message. On the other hand it is a big downside to overcome deficiencies in one app, so I think I may just switch to this mode when I have a lot of email to read and then switch back - despite logging off and on twice!
sagesageI've been looking for a solution to help with this too in Outlook 2013 and just came across a third party commercial add on to help with this called 'Zoom Email Windows Add-In' from http://www.sperrysoftware.com/outlook/zoom-email-windows.asp.
I just installed the trial in Outlook 2013 32bit and it is working well for me, i.e. it automatically sets the zoom value in the Reading Pane to what I configured. I wanted to suggest this if you are still looking for a solution.
How Do I Make Text In Incoming Email In Outlook 2016 For Mac
here is updated Outlook VBA code that resizes both opened messages and the reading pane. Microsoft blocked access to the Zoom parameter so you will have to first install Redemption drivers (http://www.dimastr.com/redemption/home.htm) and then under VBA Tools/References activate 'Microsoft Word 15.0 Object Library' and 'Redemption Outlook and MAPI COM Library'. paste and run the code below, zoom is set in MsgZoom constant.
bwDracoI've dug around everywhere to find a way to do this and just stumbled across it accidentally on my own.
Inside the Outlook client, on the bottom right of the Outlook pane, there's the zoom slider bar. Click on the number next to the bar. This pops up a new dialog box that lets you select a zoom level or type in a custom level. There is a checkbox at the bottom that says 'Remember my preference.' I've closed and re-launched Outlook several times and so far seems to be sticking at the level I set.
I have no idea why MS can't provide a straightforward answer for this, but I finally found it on my own.
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