You can create a bunch of rules that tell Outlook Express or Outlook what a particular spam message looks like and what to do with it — mainly, to get it the heck out of your inbox! The e-mail program applies each rule to each message as it arrives in your inbox; and, by creating rules that match the headers or text of spam messages, you can deflect spam from your inbox into another folder.

If you use any of the Outlook junk e-mail filtering features, Outlook tries to spot spam and move it into the Junk E-Mail folder. Outlook may miss much of it, though. Rules allow you to specify additional spam to move.

Rules don't work with Web-based mailboxes, like Hotmail. Rules don't work with IMAP-based mailboxes either (these mailboxes, used mainly in large organizations, allow you to read mail on the mail server without downloading it for storage on your computer).

You can make pretty fancy rules. For example, you can specify that if a message contains the phrase low interest mortgage or debt reduction and it's not from your bank, it should be deleted. You can make lots of rules, one for each type of spam you get. The more you make, the more spam never hits your inbox.

To work with rules, choose Tools, Message Rules, Mail to display the Message Rules dialog box. If you haven't created any rules yet, Outlook Express displays the New Mail Rule dialog box. From the Message Rules dialog box, click the New button to create a new rule.