Restricting Desktop Alerts in Ms Outlook

It is said that too much of even a good thing can

become a drawback and the fact holds true even for desktop alerts generated by the Ms Outlook application. If you happen to receive a large number of emails in a give day, you are likely to hear that familiar noise of email landing in your inbox quite frequently accompanied by a desktop alert. At some point it can become really annoying especially when some of the emails that you are receiving are spam emails or are forwarded messages of little consequence. Now if you were wondering whether it is possible to restrict desktop alerts to specific senders then you would be delighted to know that Outlook does offer this choice. Let’s look at how you can achieve the same.

Turn Off All Desktop Alerts

At the outset you need to turn off the default Desktop Alert notification that you have set for all incoming emails. You can do so by visiting the Tools tab and then clicking on Preferences which appears under Options. Next click on Email Options and Move on to Advanced options and uncheck the box next to Desktop alerts. If you wish you can even turn off the sound alerts too. 

Create an Outlook Rule to initiate a Desktop Alert for messages received from important contacts

Next you need to create an Outlook rule for specific emails on which you would wish to receive a desktop alert. Start by creating a new Rule by selecting the Blank rule option. Next you need to select the option Apply Rule On Message I Receive and then go to the Conditions tab and select the option From People or Distribution list. In the bottom pane you will find the option underlined and on clicking it you will get the choice to add the important people from your contact list. Once completed, you would only receive alerts when you receive emails from the preferred contacts.

Configuring alerts for Emails with a specific subject line

Outlook also gives you the flexibility to create desktop alerts based on the subject of the email you receive. For example if you can create a desktop alert for any email that comes with the subject “Meeting request”. Here too you need to create a rule and go to the Conditions tab and choose the option With Specific Words in the Subject and then place the subject keywords. 

Outlook Can Crash Without an Alert

While the Outlook application can notify you of any email that comes into your Inbox, it is unlikely to alert you about an impending crash. For all its spectacular features, the Ms Outlook client has an uncanny predisposition to crash and even compromise its encompassing data. So if you are regular Outlook user, it may be prudent for you to keep an outlook repair program like the potent DataNumen Outlook Repair handy, in order to meet any contingencies. The tool has the capacity to get data out of nearly any PST files irrespective of the media type or the file size.

Author Introduction:

Alan Chen is President & Chairman of DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including sql recovery and outlook repair software products. For more information visit http://www.datanumen.com/