I have a rule set up in MS Outlook 2007 that I do not want to run automatically, but I do want to run sporadically by hand. I would like to expedite that 'by hand' process as much as possible. Is there a way to make it so I could have, say, a button in my toolbar that runs the rule?

Go to the default Sent Items folder, and on the Home tab click the Rules button and select Manage Rules & Alerts. The Rules and Alerts window opens. Click the New Rule button. Locate the Start from a blank rule section, select the Apply rule on messages I send option, and click Next (Fig. The new rule wizard in Outlook.

Basically, there are certain kinds of message (automatically generated by another server) that I want to see in my inbox when they arrive, but do not care about once I've seen them. Some of them are even so trivial that once I have seen the title, I want them cleared away to an archive. Every time I feel like my inbox is too cluttered with these, I go to the Tools menu, Rules and Alerts, Run Rules Now, find the rule I want, click its checkbox, click the Run button, then click Ok twice when it's all done. I would love to boil that process down into a single button click. I wanted to do the same thing, more or less. There are emails that I file via rules as soon as they hit my inbox – I don't even look at them. Then there are others that I need to see and read, but once I do I could also have a rule to file them quickly.

This is where the rules system in Outlook seems to fail. It happens only on new items, mostly so that the Exchange server can do it on its own. So I waste a lot of time dragging read messages to the correct folder – and I have several hundred of those. Here is how I implemented it, in basic steps: • Created a category called 'Auto-file'. • Wrote rules which checked for category 'Auto-file' as part of the criteria. Saved them with Fileit: in the name to show me that these were category-based rules (i.e., delayed action, unlike my other rules). • Wrote a macro (below) that sets the selected mail items to this category, marks them as read, then runs the rules with rule names starting with Fileit.

• Added a button to my main toolbar to run this macro. So now, to file stuff in my inbox that I have read, I select it and hit the button and it all goes away by magic, based on my Fileit rules. I don't use the category otherwise, so this works for me. Note too that the category setting remains (which could be considered a plus).

If you already use categories a lot, this would not work so well. Be aware that this turns the rule into a 'Client-only' rule (the category bit does this), which basically means Exchange can't run it for you – which is fine, but it will warn you of this when you save the rule.

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The code is nothing fancy and you could almost certainly do it yourself in a few minutes, but I give it here to copy/paste if you like. Sub myFileItMacro() ' 2015-06-24 SWB First attempt to automate Outlook filing ' Note that Outlook 2013 does not have a macro recorder, which doesn't help. Dim myItem As Outlook.MailItem Dim intItemCount As Integer Dim myRules As Outlook.Rules Dim myRule As Outlook.Rule Dim intLoop As Integer ' Used to set category of more than one item. IntItemCount = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count If intItemCount > 0 Then '. And to check at least one is selected ' Next, assign it to the category.

This should be set up beforehand. For intLoop = 1 To intItemCount ' This could throw an error if there is nothing selected, presumably. Set myItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(intLoop) myItem.Categories = 'Auto-file' myItem.UnRead = False ' Flag as read ' You should be able to see this in the category column once this line runs. MyItem.Save Next ' Lastly, run the rules on the inbox, although, it would be even better ' to run rules just on this item. Hmmm ' You have to do this by going through the rules. Set myRules = Application.Session.DefaultStore.GetRules For Each myRule In myRules ' Execute only rules named starting with 'Fileit'.

' These have the category filter. If Left(myRule.Name, 6) = 'Fileit' Then myRule.Execute (False) End If Next End If End Sub Appended from second answer.