Sorting rules

The rules that decide where each sender's mail goes.

A sorting rule tells Sortfully where a sender's mail should go. The Sorting rules page is where you see every rule, fine-tune them, and add your own. You can search the list by domain or folder.

The kinds of rule

Auto: learned for you from a sender's domain. Choose Customise to turn one into an editable rule. Auto rules are kept for as long as the mailbox is connected, even after old entries leave your audit log.
Custom: a rule you made for one or more senders, pointing at a folder or category.
Grouped: several senders that share a single destination, bundled into one rule (for example, all your suppliers into a Suppliers folder).
Excluded: domains or addresses that should stay in the Inbox and never move.

Move, Tag, or Both

Each rule has a mode toggle:

Move: mail leaves the Inbox into a subfolder.
Tag: mail stays in the Inbox with a coloured category label.
Both: tag, then move.

If you switch a rule down from Move (or Both) to Tag, Sortfully asks what to do with the existing folder: keep the folder as it is, or move the mail back and delete the folder (mail in its sender subfolders comes back to your Inbox too). (What the modes mean.)

Adding a rule

Press Add rule and the dialog walks you through it:

Choose Sort it (route the mail somewhere) or Keep in Inbox (exclude it).
Enter one or more domains (which also catch their subdomains) or specific addresses. Press Enter between entries to add several at once. Sortfully shows how many emails it filed from those senders in the last 30 days.
If sorting, set the destination folder or category name (it's pre-filled from the domain) and pick the mode.

When to file

Each rule's menu has a When to file choice, the same options as the mailbox setting in Settings:

Mailbox setting: follow the mailbox (the menu shows what that is, for example Hold 7 days).
As soon as it arrives
After I read it
Hold 7, 14 or 30 days in your Inbox first

A rule's choice replaces the mailbox setting for that sender. If your organisation enforces one schedule for everyone, the menu shows it instead of offering a choice.

Subfolders

For a rule that moves mail into a folder, the menu also has a Subfolders choice (a preview feature):

Mailbox setting: follow the mailbox's sender subfolders setting. With it on, people get a subfolder once at least 2 people at the company have each sent you 5 emails.
Every sender: each sender gets a subfolder straight away. No-reply addresses still stay in the main folder.
None: everything goes into the one folder.

Renaming and re-running

Rename changes the real Outlook folder, or a group's category name. After renaming a category, existing tagged mail keeps the old label until you re-run.
Re-run re-sorts mail that's already filed under a rule, applying the current destination and mode. Use it after you change where a rule points. It runs in the background.
Delete removes the rule. Mail that was already filed stays where it is.

Renaming a folder directly in Outlook is safe. Sortfully tracks each destination by Outlook's stable folder ID, not its name. If you rename a Sortfully folder yourself in Outlook, the rule isn't affected, mail keeps filing into that same folder, and no duplicate is created. Sortfully notices the new name within a few minutes and shows it here too.

Working with groups

Expand a group to manage its members:

Add member: fold another domain or address into the group.
Remove member: drop a single sender without deleting the group.
Change mode, When to file, Rename, Re-run: apply to every member at once.
Delete rule: removes the group's rules; filed mail stays put.

Why folders are named the way they are

Auto folders use the root organisation domain with the public suffix removed, and subdomains collapse into one folder. So mail.github.io becomes github, and everything from acme.com, whatever the alias, lands in acme. The page includes this explainer, plus the resolution order Sortfully uses when rules overlap.