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Outlook Express Menu Options

File Menu:

The file menu is pictured below. Click on file and the window will drop-down and give you a variety of options. Under the "new" section, you can start new e-mail messages, add new "contacts" in your address book and even create folders where you can sort and organize your e-mail messages.

The import option gives you a chance to bring old e-mails, address books, etc., from another e-mail program on your computer or network. The export contacts option will help you to send your address book to another e-mail program.

Switch identity is important if you have multiple people using your computer. You can have separate profiles that have their own e-mail identities so that various members of your household or workplace can check their own e-mails without seeing everyone else's e-mails and vice versa. This topic is covered in more detail in the managing profiles section later in this Web page. <next: edit menu> <return to top>

Edit Menu:

You can see the various editing options pictured below. They are pretty self-explanatory. The most interesting section is the preferences section where you customize your e-mail settings. That topic was covered in detail earlier in this Web page. <next: view menu> <return to top>

View Menu:

The view menu is pictured below. It gives you a variety of options to control what you see in your program. You can add & remove toolbars, folders and previews. You can also decide what information about your e-mails is displayed. For example, you can select columns -> size to have your e-mail program list the sizes of the e-mails in your inbox. <next: message menu> <return to top>

Message Menu:

You can use the message menu (pictured below) to do a wide variety of things in Outlook Express. You can set e-mails to be sent at a later time. You can reply to e-mails or forward them to someone else. You can mark your e-mails as having been read or you can mark them all as not having been read even though you've already read them. You can add an attachment (such as a picture or file) to an e-mail. You can create a "signature" that automatically adds certain text that you choose to the end of all of your e-mails. There are a bunch of options. We suggest that you play around with the options to see what you want to use. They tend to be pretty self-explanatory. <next: format menu> <return to top>

Format Menu:

The format menu lets you choose your print fonts, sizes, colors and a variety of other nifty little design options. <next: tools menu> <return to top>

Tools Menu:

There are some really nice features under the tools menu. Besides telling Outlook Express to send & receive mail or add an e-mail address to your address book, you can setup signatures, junk mail filters, e-mail processing rules and account configurations. These features are covered below:

<next: signatures> <junk mail filters> <processing rules> <return to top for more options>

Signatures:

"Signatures" are text messages and/or e-mail addresses that automatically get put on the end of all of your e-mails. For example, you can have a signature that always puts "Have a nice day!" on the end of your e-mails along with your name, address, phone number and e-mail address.

Begin by opening the tools menu and choosing signatures. The following box will pop-up. Click the "new" button to create a new signature or highlight an existing signature and click the "edit" button to change that signature. <next>

Type a name for the signature in the top box. In the main box, type the "signature" that you want added to all of your e-mails. Close the window to make it take effect.

You can also setup several signatures and then set each of them to randomize. Put a checkmark in the box in the top right hand corner where it says "include in random list." If you have several signatures with that option checked then your e-mails will randomly send different signatures at the end of your e-mails.

<next: junk mail filters> <processing rules> <return to top for more options>

Junk Mail Filter:

Although most of the major ISPs go to a lot of trouble to block junk e-mails (also known as "spam"), some still manages to get through. You can use Outlook Express' junk mail filter to block a lot of it. Open the tools menu and choose the junk mail filter option to get to the window below.

You begin by putting a checkmark in the top left box to enable the filter. You can then adjust the sensitivity. Low sensitivity is more forgiving. High sensitivity might delete e-mails that you actually want.

There are two main ways to make sure that e-mail that you want to get is received. The first is to put the people that you correspond with into your address book. That will guarantee that their e-mails don't get blocked. You can also put certain domains into the lower box to make sure that all e-mail from that domain gets through. For example, if you work at a company with @company.com e-mail addresses then put company.com in the box. (Don't include the @ sign.) If there is more than one domain that you trust then put multiple names.com in the box with a comma separating the names.

You can select "run applescript" to have your e-mail program automatically delete the e-mail messages.

Mail Processing Rules:

Processing rules can sort e-mails to specified folders, automatically forward messages to other e-mail accounts or even automatically delete certain messages. The rules can sort messages in several ways. You can have rules that relate to certain people that send you e-mail. For example, e-mail from your kids can automatically go into a folder that only has e-mails from them. You could have another folder for work related e-mails. You can also sort the e-mails by subject line. If certain types of e-mails always have the same subject line then that would enable you to setup rules to handle those particular e-mails.

Begin by either clicking the "new" button to create a new rule or by highlighting an existing rule (such as "untitled" in the window below) and then clicking the "edit" button. <next>

Both the new button and the edit button result in the following window. Give the rule a name in the top box. For example, if the rule involves e-mail from your family then you might name the rule "family" so that you can easily tell it apart from another rule such as "work" that handles work related e-mails.

You can add criterion and actions to process your incoming e-mails. One criterion might be to check if the message is from a certain account. If so, you can create several "actions" such as setting those e-mails to automatically forward to another e-mail account. The example below forwards messages to whatever@wherever.com while saving the message in a special folder called family matters.

Click the little drop-down arrows to get a better idea of what options are available to you. It might take a little bit to get used to setting up mailbox rules but many people can't live without them because they can be so helpful.

<next: window menu> <address books> <return to top for more options>

Window Menu:

The window menu allows you to have several different windows open at a time and to navigate between them. Most people don't need this but you've got the capability if you do. You will probably mainly use this menu to get to the address book which is covered below.

<next: address books> <return to top for more options>

Address Book:

Address books allow you to keep track of all of the e-mail addresses that you correspond with. You can also use the address book to put in e-mail addresses into e-mails so that you don't have to worry about typing them correctly each time that you send an e-mail to a friend.

To open your address book, click the window menu and choose address book. The address book will look like the one pictured below. Let's begin by clicking on the "new" button at the top to put your first person into your address book. <next>

This is the window where you put in the information for a new address book contact. It is also the window where you edit an existing address book entry. You mainly just put in a name for the contact and then close that window to put in the real info. <next>

This is the window where the real info goes. You are mainly concerned with putting in a good e-mail address but you can also keep track of their work and home addresses and phone numbers. <next>

This is the window where you put in the e-mail address. Make sure that you don't put any extra spaces in there.