Important Mail Alert for Outlook is a part of our Outlook Add-ins Collection. The add-in helps you always see and never miss important email messages in Outlook.
How to work with the Important Mail Alert rules
Create a rule
The message you wait for can be from a certain person, it may contain definite text or numbers. To be notified when it arrives, you need to create a new rule with this text, and the add-in will scan all incoming messages for this keyword or address and alert you when the important email arrives.
Important Mail Alert will look for the alert text in the To, From, Subject fields and in the body of the letter.
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To add the rules, click on the Important Mail Alert icon under the Ablebits tab in Outlook. You will see the add-in window:
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Click on the New button:
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You will see a pop-up window where you can enter the text that will trigger the alert (it can be a word or phrase, name, email address, number or part of a sentence) and pick the field(s) to search in: Sender, Subject, or Message Body:
Tip. If text case is important for you, tick the Case-sensitive checkbox. The same text with different cases (for example, 'hello' and 'Hello') will be identified as different text and the alert will pop up only if text in the entered case arrives.
Click OK.
Note. The add-in will look for the exact match of the word or phrase you type in.
Edit a rule
You can change the contents of a rule if necessary.
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Click the Important Mail Alert icon in the ribbon.
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Double-click on the rule you want to change. You can also select the rule and press Edit in the toolbar, or right-click on it and pick the Edit option from the menu:
Make the necessary changes to the alert text and click OK to confirm:
Disable/enable a rule
You can temporarily switch off a rule if you untick the checkbox next to it. To enable a rule, just re-tick the checkbox next to it:
Delete a rule
To delete a rule that you do not need any more, hover your mouse pointer above the rule to see the cross icon next to it. Click on the cross to remove the needed item:
You can also remove a rule by pressing Delete on the toolbar, or by right-clicking on it and selecting Delete from the menu list.
Use Important Mail Alert options
Use the Options icon to choose accounts you want to scan and specify if you want to remove alerts after opening emails.
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Click on the Options icon:
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You will see the Options window:
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All your accounts are selected by default. Uncheck those accounts that you don't need to be scanned for emails with the key text.
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Tick off the option Remove alerts after opening emails if you want to automatically delete Important Mail Alert items from the pane. In this case, after all alerts are opened or marked as read, the add-in pane will disappear.
How to work with alerts
Get and manage alerts
Important Mail Alert checks all the incoming messages for the alert text in your rules.
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When the email you are waiting for arrives, the add-in shows an Important Mail Alert box on top of all applications you are working with:
Note. As soon as an email with alert text arrives, you'll see a bright orange strip above your emails on the reading pane:
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Click the See button to navigate to the add-in pane or close the message by clicking Cancel.
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You can open an email by double-clicking the alert on the pane.
Mark alerts as unread
After you open an email, its name will automatically grey out on the Important Mail Alert pane. If you just opened an email but want to keep it unread in the list of notifications, you can mark the message as unread. Just right-click on the email and pick the Mark alert as unread option:
You can mark a message as Read the same way:
Note. This options will not be actual if you check Remove alerts after opening emails in the Options window.
Delete alerts
Once you see your important message, you can delete alerts from the add-in pane.
If you want to remove an alert, hover your mouse pointer above it and click on the cross that will appear next to it:
Also, you can select an item in the list and press the Delete key, or right-click the notification and pick Delete from the menu list.
Tip. If you want to delete all alerts at once, use the Ctrl + A keyboard shortcut and then press Delete. Or right-click on any alert and pick Remove all alerts from the list.
Responses
Hi, is there a way to use sound alert along with regular notification when email arrives?
Hi Yuri,
thank you for your question. The Important Mail Alert utility uses the standard Windows notification sound and it is impossible to change it or add any new alert.
Please feel free to contact us again with any other comments.
Thank you.
Thanks Irina, then does notification work on shared folders?
(exchange email account)
Hi Yuri,
The tool scans all the Outlook accounts you select in the Options window, including shared folders. When the utility finds emails that fit your rule, it gives you a notification: visual and sound. However, there may be some issues with shared folders if you have limited permissions - in this case, the utility may not be able to scan the entire folder.
Thank you.
Will the alert sound continuously play until the alert is addressed?
Hello Ray,
No, it won't play continuously. It'll be a brief sound (which one - depends on your Windows sounds settings) at the moment of getting a pop-up message.
Does the rule alert carry across to other PC's signed in using the same email account?
Or do you need to duplicate the alert on each pc?
Hello Brad,
Thank you for your questions.
Unfortunately, the rule for the same email account won't work on other machines if the add-in is not installed there. You will have to first install the add-in there and set a rule for Important Mail Alert anew. Alternatively, you can copy the file with your rule from C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Ablebits\Important Mail Alert on the machine where you're using it at the moment and paste it in the same folder on other machines after installing the add-in there. Hope this will help you.
I'm curious if it's possible to set wildcards in the mail alert, so you get a message on every email that arrives. is that possible?
If yes, how?
Hello Tobias,
Thank you for your question. If you'd like the add-in to notify you every time an email arrives, please try to create a rule using the @ sign as the Search text and selecting the Sender option to search in.
Hope this will work for you.