Email Block Senders List and Message Rules

(Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Live Mail, Mac Mail, IncrediMail and Thunderbird)

How to use Block Sender in Outlook Express

When you block a sender or domain, you do not receive any e-mail messages or news messages from that sender or domain in your Inbox folder or in the news messages that you read. When you receive messages from blocked senders, the e-mail messages are sent directly to your Deleted Items folder, and the newsgroup messages are not displayed.

There are a couple of different ways to add an email address to your block senders list, the first is to block messages automatically.

In your Inbox folder or in the list of messages in a newsgroup, click the message from the sender that you want to block.
On the Message menu, click Block Sender.
A confirmation message should come up asking if you really want to block this sender, if you wish to continue, press Yes. (You will loose all emails by the person you wish to block)

The other method to adding an email address to your block senders list in Outlook Express is to click on Tools --> Message Rules --> Block Senders List..

Your Message Rules window should look similar to the one below, we should already be under the Blocked Senders tab.
To add an email address to this list, click on Add... on the right hand side.
Another Edit Sender window will come up, this is where you can manually add the email address you wish to block, also you can choose whether you would like to block just mail messages or news messages also.
When finished, click OK.

How to Use Message Rules in Outlook Express

Using the Rules feature of Outlook Express you can decide what will happen to emails when they arrive. For example, you can label some types of email a certain colour or send certain email directly to a particular folder.

From the Outlook Express menu, select Tools --> Message Rules --> Mail

There are four areas

(1) Select the Conditions for your rule:

This specifies when the rule takes effect. For example, if the To line in an email contains a particular person's name.

(2) Select the Actions for your rule:

This is what will happen when the rule applies. For example, send all email addressed to a particular person to their folder.

(3) Rule Description:

Details of what the rule does. Click the links to specify the values. For example, click "contains people" to enter the person's name or click "specified" to designate what folder the messages will be saved too.

(4) Name of the Rule

A convenient name for you to remember what this rule does.

When you've entered all the information, click OK. If possible, send a test email to make sure it's working correctly.

Another example..
All emails sent From email@ruraltel.net
Will be moved to the specified folder of drafts.

Click on Address Book.. to find your contacts.
Click OK when all contacts have been added.

Select the folder you wish to save your messages in, once finished click OK.

How to use Block Sender in Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail

To add a sender to your list of blocked senders in Windows Live Mail or Windows Mail:

Select a message in your inbox from the undesired sender.
Select Junk --> Add sender to blocked senders list

You can also manually add email address' to your block senders list, to do this click on Junk then choose Safety Options...

Click on the Block Senders tab, then choose Add... on the right hand side and type in the email address you wish to block. When you are finished, press OK and then press Apply.

How to Use Message Rules in Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail

From the Windows Live Mail menu across the top, select the Folders tab and the click on Message Rules.

There are four areas

(1) Select the Conditions for your rule

This specifies when the rule takes effect. For example, if the To line in an email contains a particular person's name.

(2) Select the Actions for your rule

This is what will happen when the rule applies. For example, send all email addressed to a particular person to their folder.

(3) Rule Description

(4) Name of the Rule

A convenient name for you to remember what this rule does.

When you've entered all the information, click OK. If possible, send a test email to make sure it's working correctly.

How to Use Message Rules in Mac Mail

The Mac OS X Mail application will allow you to set up filters or rules that process or sort mail as you receive it. For example, you can filter mail from a certain sender into a folder with the sender's name. To set up a rule to filter your mail in Mac OS X Mail:

From the Mail menu, choose Preferences