Outlook Rules work Automatically but not manually in “Run Rules Now” dialog

microsoft-outlook-2016rules

I have created a ton of outlook rules since recently i've been added to a group which gets, in my opinion, spammed with emails like new stores opening, reports and emails about problems unrelated to my department or location (ie. a celebratory party for the completion or UAT….which is being held in another state) and i have made these rules to that emails that actually require my attention aren't buried under those that don't (if a failed report required my attention to fix i am contacted to fix it so i can monitor the failures).

when a new email comes into my inbox i make the rule to move it to another folder. these rules work fine automatically but when i run it manually it doesn't work

with the screenshot above if i hit "Run Now" for the single rule i have selected (i double check) it doesn't do anything and the email in my inbox i expect to move doesn't, however i made this rule 24 hours ago and i know it's working as the emails that was recived and matched the rule did get sent to the folder as expected. however i have a very similar rule which does work when i run it in this dialog when it's selected

But as you can see the only difference is the "New Item Alert" action but it's not this because i add it to the rule i'm tyring to run and no chnage

So why can't I run my rule manually in "Run Rules Now"

Best Answer

Have you tried highlighting the specific emails you want the rule to run on (click on the top email, shift + click the last email) in your inbox, then go to Rules, Manage Rules & Alerts, Run Rules Now

Related Solutions

Outlook – Make Outlook run rules on non-inbox folders automatically

Here it is. Note this is specific to the Junk folder (olFolderJunk is an Outlook constant), and it will run any filter I create prefixed with "JUNK_FILTER_".

It is optimistic and has virtually no error checking, so use it at your peril. Don't use it if you don't understand it :)

Sub runRulesOnJunkFolder()
    Dim st As Outlook.Store
    Dim myRules As Outlook.Rules
    Dim rl As Outlook.Rule
    Dim count As Integer
    Dim ruleList As String
    Dim rulePrefix As String
    Dim ruleFolder As Long

    '
    Dim outlookApp As Outlook.Application
    Dim objNS As NameSpace


    ruleFolder = olFolderJunk
    rulePrefix = "JUNK_FILTER_"

    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set objJunkfolder = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(ruleFolder)

    ' get default store (where rules live)
    Set st = Application.Session.DefaultStore
    ' get rules
    Set myRules = st.GetRules

    ' iterate all the rules
    For Each rl In myRules
        ' determine if it's an Inbox rule and rule name prefix matches
        If rl.RuleType = olRuleReceive And Left(rl.Name, Len(rulePrefix)) = rulePrefix Then

            ' if so, run it
            rl.Execute ShowProgress:=True, Folder:=objJunkfolder
            count = count + 1
            ruleList = ruleList & vbCrLf & rl.Name
        End If
    Next

    ' tell the user what you did
    ruleList = "These rules were executed against the folder: " & objJunkfolder.Name & vbCrLf & ruleList
    MsgBox ruleList, vbInformation, "Macro: runRulesOnJunkFolder"

    Set rl = Nothing
    Set st = Nothing
    Set myRules = Nothing
    Set objJunkfolder = Nothing
    Set objNS = Nothing
End Sub

Outlook rules moving wrong emails (but works properly when rules are manually applied)

The issue was that some of my rules were based on the sender. I thought that specifying FROM <an alias> would filter only the rules that literally came from that alias. In fact, the rule moves any email from anyone who is a member of the alias. This link has some further info, now that I knew what to look for.

(Mind you, I am still not sure why a manual trigger of the same rules did not cause them to move the second time around.)

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