Rule to foward email unless its Junk

[Brian Cryer]

I'm working in a small office where almost everyone is using Outlook 2003,
connected to Exchange 2003. We have a few email accounts which are "generic"
and are promoted as public contact points. Emails to these are then
forwarded (by rule) to two people in the office who decide who they should
best be dealt with. This system works well for us and it means that emails
sent directly to someone are easily distinguishable from emails sent to one
of these "generic" accounts.

The problem with this setup relates to junk. The Junk email filter in
Outlook/Exchange 2003 does quite a good job at cutting out junk/spam. The
problem I face is how to utilize this in respect of our "generic" email
addresses. We probably get more junk on those than on all our other accounts
combined, but I couldn't see any rule option to forward email unless it is
marked as junk. Once the email has been forwarded it appears to come from an
internal account and the junk filter doesn't seem to get a look in.

Any ideas what I should do?

Thanks.

 

[Brian Tillman]

The problem with this setup relates to junk. The Junk email filter in
Outlook/Exchange 2003 does quite a good job at cutting out junk/spam.
The problem I face is how to utilize this in respect of our "generic"
email addresses. We probably get more junk on those than on all our
other accounts combined, but I couldn't see any rule option to
forward email unless it is marked as junk. Once the email has been
forwarded it appears to come from an internal account and the junk
filter doesn't seem to get a look in.

WIth Outlook 2003 SP2 (and maybe SP1, I don't recall), the Junk Mail filter
runs before rules execute. Thus, your rules will forward only messages
Outlook does not recognize as junk mail.

 

[Brian Cryer]

WIth Outlook 2003 SP2 (and maybe SP1, I don't recall), the Junk Mail
filter runs before rules execute. Thus, your rules will forward only
messages Outlook does not recognize as junk mail.

That helps me if I select to permanently delete junk, but I would like to
maintain the option of having someone manually skim through the junk emails
once a month or so - because I know from my own experience that some genuine
emails can get trapped as spam. Sorry, I start to sound like I'm asking too
much ...

What I would like is to keep the spam in the account for what it was
received, but forward non spam/junk to other recipients. Unless I'm missing
it there doesn't seem to be any way to construct a rule around junk, i.e.
forward if not junk.

I'm beginning to wonder whether a different approach would be better - just
to share the mailbox instead of forwarding, at least that way it would be
obvious what was junk. I'll discuss with the individuals involved.

 

[Brian Cryer]

That helps me if I select to permanently delete junk, but I would like to
maintain the option of having someone manually skim through the junk
emails once a month or so - because I know from my own experience that
some genuine emails can get trapped as spam. Sorry, I start to sound like
I'm asking too much ...

What I would like is to keep the spam in the account for what it was
received, but forward non spam/junk to other recipients. Unless I'm
missing it there doesn't seem to be any way to construct a rule around
junk, i.e. forward if not junk.

I'm beginning to wonder whether a different approach would be better -
just to share the mailbox instead of forwarding, at least that way it
would be obvious what was junk. I'll discuss with the individuals
involved.

We're going the route of sharing the inbox rather than forwarding emails.
Seems simpler and it should be more obvious what's spam/junk - at least
according to the junk email filter.

 

[Brian Tillman]

What I would like is to keep the spam in the account for what it was
received, but forward non spam/junk to other recipients. Unless I'm
missing it there doesn't seem to be any way to construct a rule
around junk, i.e. forward if not junk.

I already said that that is the way Outlook currently works. Rules that
forward messages will work on those messages not placed in the Junk E-mail
folder. If the messages are in the Junk E-mail folder, once per month, as
you say, someone can go through that folder and delete the messages that are
truly junk and then forward the remainder, either manually by forwarding or
by manually running the forwarding rules on the Junk E-mail folder.