How to use Important Mail Alert

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
  • Edit a rule
  • Disable/enable a rule
  • Delete a rule
  • Use Important Mail Alert options
• How to work with alerts
  • Get and manage alerts
  • Mark alerts as unread
  • Delete alerts

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.

1. To add the rules, click on the Important Mail Alert icon under the Ablebits tab in Outlook. You will see the add-in window:
   
2. Click on the New button:
   
3. 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.

1. Click the Important Mail Alert icon in the ribbon.
2. 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.

1. Click on the Options icon:
   
2. You will see the Options window:
   
3. All your accounts are selected by default. Uncheck those accounts that you don't need to be scanned for emails with the key text.
4. 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.

1. 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:
   
2. Click the See button to navigate to the add-in pane or close the message by clicking Cancel.
3. 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:

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.