Categories and rules not working

N

NWFriend

Using Entourage 2004 with Mac OS 10.3.7.
I have assigned categories to all of my contacts in the address book (e.g.,
family, friends, work, etc.). I then use Rules to move emails from these
contacts to a corresponding subfolder of my Inbox (family, friends, work,
etc.).
However, since I upgraded to 2004 from v.X, my contacts in address book
still have the same categories, but when email comes in from most of them,
I've noticed the category is missing. I right-click on the email, look at
Categories, and see that it's set to None, even though that same contact in
address book does in fact have an assigned category. I've also verified that
it's the same email address in the address book as the sender of the email.
With no category, the rules obviously don't work either.
Any suggestions on what I could do to fix this? Thanks.
 
N

NWFriend

I just tried the advice at
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule002.html and redid my rules
so that the first criterion is as follows:
IF: From Is in category Family
THEN: Move message Family
I then had my brother send me a test email. He is in my Entourage address
book and has the category "Family" assigned to him.
The email came right into my Inbox bypassing the Family subfolder. I checked
and the email did NOT have the category "Family" assigned to it but instead
had "None."
What could possibly be wrong? This is the ONLY rule I have - I deleted all
the others.
I also read "Why Rules Don't Work" at
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/rules.html and tried to learn
from that. One thing I didn't understand from it was this section:

"If mail category is getting reset, check rules above. The "default" action
for every new rule is "Set category to None". If you don't switch that popup
but just add other actions, it's going to turn "category" status off."

I'm pretty good with English, but I don't follow this. It appears to
describe what is happening to me, viz., that the mail categories are being
reset to None. However, to which popup is this direction referring? How do I
ensure that my categories are not turned off?

Thanks,
Rick
 
M

Matthew Smith

NWFriend said:
Using Entourage 2004 with Mac OS 10.3.7.
I have assigned categories to all of my contacts in the address book (e.g.,
family, friends, work, etc.). I then use Rules to move emails from these
contacts to a corresponding subfolder of my Inbox (family, friends, work,
etc.).
However, since I upgraded to 2004 from v.X, my contacts in address book
still have the same categories, but when email comes in from most of them,
I've noticed the category is missing. I right-click on the email, look at
Categories, and see that it's set to None, even though that same contact in
address book does in fact have an assigned category. I've also verified that
it's the same email address in the address book as the sender of the email.
With no category, the rules obviously don't work either.
Any suggestions on what I could do to fix this? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Check your preferences. In the Address Book section make sure you have
all 3 items checked under the Messages heading.
 
N

NWFriend

Thank you. I'll try that and let you know.
Rick


Check your preferences. In the Address Book section make sure you have
all 3 items checked under the Messages heading.
Click to expand...
 
N

NWFriend

Alright, I did follow this advice and the next email that came did have the
correct category assigned to it, matching the one I had assigned to the
sender in the address book.
However, the rule failed nonetheless.
I have If From Is in category Family
Then Move message Family
Didn't work - stayed in my main inbox.
Any other suggestions?
Rick
 
R

Rudy Kohut

Rick

You've probably covered this ... But make sure that the first rule "Move if
Spam" has the "Do not apply other rules to messages that meet these
criteria" un-ticked.
 
N

NWFriend

Thank you for your help.
I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to a "Move if Spam" rule. I don't
have that rule (that I know of). The only rule I have is a Family rule, that
moves any email coming from a sender that is in the category "Family" to my
"Family" subfolder of Inbox. The category is working now - the sender is
keeping the Family category designation. But the email is not going to the
Family folder, just to the main Inbox. Is there a Spam rule someplace else I
should check?
Thanks,
Rick
 
R

Rudy Kohut

Rick

Sorry for making assumptions. I now understand you have only one Rule that
says:
From Is in category Family
Then Move message Family

Try adding a new criterion before the one you have that says "From" "Is in
Address Book".

If that doesn't work, try setting up a new Folder that isn't a sub-folder.

I have to admit that I don't use the "category" criterion in a Rule - I list
each member of my "Family" as a separate criterion in the Rule and then move
the email to the right folder.

Hope this helps.
 
N

NWFriend

This is very frustrating...perhaps unnecessarily so. I have only ONE rule.
It is supposed to move any mail from my Inbox to a Family folder I created
(no longer a subfolder of Inbox but a separate folder of equal ranking) if
the sender is in the category Family. The emails from senders categorized as
Family still will NOT go to that Family folder but stay in the Inbox. This
result is the same even if I add a new criterion as you suggested below.
With or without it, the mail will not move to my Family folder.

I don't know if this makes any difference but I do notice that with the Then
action set to Move Message to Family, the "Do not apply other rules to
messages that meet these criteria" is checked by default and cannot be
unchecked. Since there are no other rules to apply, I don't know why this
would make any difference.

Thanks,
Rick
 
D

Diane Ross

This is very frustrating...perhaps unnecessarily so. I have only ONE rule.
It is supposed to move any mail from my Inbox to a Family folder I created
Click to expand...

I'm a bit confused. Mail should not go to the Inbox and then be moved to the
Family folder unless you are running the rule manually after mail is
downloaded.
(no longer a subfolder of Inbox but a separate folder of equal ranking) if
the sender is in the category Family. The emails from senders categorized as
Family still will NOT go to that Family folder but stay in the Inbox. This
result is the same even if I add a new criterion as you suggested below.
With or without it, the mail will not move to my Family folder.

I don't know if this makes any difference but I do notice that with the Then
action set to Move Message to Family, the "Do not apply other rules to
messages that meet these criteria" is checked by default and cannot be
unchecked. Since there are no other rules to apply, I don't know why this
would make any difference.
Click to expand...

See the example of the rule using categories here:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule002.html>

I use categories all the time and it's a great way to create simple rules.
 
N

NWFriend

Thank you. To clarify, I don't mean that mail goes to the Inbox first and
then is moved to the Family folder. My description was inaccurate. All I'm
trying to say is that I want mail to end up in the Family folder, per the
rule I've created, regardless of the specific mechanism. That aside, I did
check that page previously and I have my rule set up that same way. The only
difference is that I didn't have the additional criterion of "Is not from a
mailing list." I have now added it. I will report back to see if that made a
difference, but I don't expect it will, since none of the emails coming from
people who are in my Family category are in email lists.
Thanks, I'd really like to get this working again - as I mentioned
initially, all the rules I had before worked great in Entourage v.X. It's
only after upgrading to 2004 that they stopped working. I've removed them
all but this one rule and it still doesn't work.
Rick
 
R

Rudy Kohut

Hello again

I expect this is very frustrating by now!

Maybe it's time to go back to basics? In the following order:

Is the Rule placed in the right account for you eg. POP or IMAP?

Try deleting the one Rule and then re-creating it.

Ensure 'Enabled' is ticked. (The ticked shaded box that says "Do not apply
other Rules ..." is logical because if the email meets the criteria of this
Rule then any others should not apply.)

If you are using the 'Junk e-mail protection' of Entourage, try using
something other than "Exclusive" in the selection of degree of protection.

Move an email manually to the Family folder (just to see if it really
exists!).

Send an email to Microsoft!

Good luck
 
N

NWFriend

Thanks all! I've officially given up. I followed each of the steps you
suggested below, with no results. Every email continues to go to the main
Inbox. I've experimented with creating a simple rule with one criterion - if
the sender is my email address, then it moves the email to my Family folder.
Even that fails. I'll just go back to reviewing emails manually.
Rick
 
D

Diane Ross

Thanks all! I've officially given up. I followed each of the steps you
suggested below, with no results. Every email continues to go to the main
Inbox. I've experimented with creating a simple rule with one criterion - if
the sender is my email address, then it moves the email to my Family folder.
Even that fails. I'll just go back to reviewing emails manually.
Rick
Click to expand...

Did you delete the rule and recreate a new one?
 
A

Allen Watson

I'd urge you not to give up. Thousands of people have this working;
there is probably something simple we are all overlooking.

Have you tried:

* Running your rule manually on a message that has Family category, via
the Message->Apply Rule menu command? If it moves the message to your
Family folder, you know the rule itself is good.

* If the rule is good, try turning off the Junk Mail filter and Mailing
List Manager, and send yourself a message (I assume you can give your
Me contact the Family category so the message should get filtered). If
it now works, you know JMF or MLM were interfering somehow. Try turning
JMF back on, see what happens.
 
T

tenmiler

i had the same problem, and my rules would work when i would apply them
manually.

thank you to the poster who advised i check my mail list manager--turns
out there was a mail list rule there that was keeping all my other
emails to that email address going to my inbox. i just selected the
folder there, and VOILA.

wow, it was killing me, because it worked perfectly in entourage X.

thanks!
 
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