Outlook 2007 Message Indicator, how to setup?

[Punkrulz]

Hey guys,

Sorry for this possibly simple to answer question here, but I need your help. I want something for my Outlook 2007, that on every single message that's received (except for Junk mail), I want that icon that appears in your task bar when a message is received in the inbox. I utilize a lot of organizational rules, but would like a message to apply for everything coming in.

I've been tinkering around, and I have a new item alert window pop up for every message, but that's only good if I'm at my computer. This will help so I don't have to keep bouncing back and forth to Outlook when I don't have to. I haven't seen any rule catagories that will do this for me. Any advice?

 

[kcnychief]

I'm confused - you want an icon to appear in your taskbar, which already seems to - and it needs to be helpful even when you are away from your computer?

 

[Punkrulz]

The mail icon ONLY appears in my taskbar when the piece of mail arrives in my Inbox and stays there. Unfortunately, I have rules that move mail messages around. Most rules involve moving messages from certain people to a folder from them. Other rules move messages into other folders based on the account that checked them.

I want the mail icon to ALWAYS appear in my taskbar when I get a new, unread email, no matter what folder it goes to. It does not presently do this.

I was messing around with rules, and was able to get the New Item Alert window to display, which displays who the email is from and also the top of the email. However, this is not helpful if I am away from the computer because unless I check Outlook, I won't know someone sent me a message, because the new item alert disappears after a few seconds leaving you no knowledge an email came in.

 

[fitz]

I believe that is "by design" when you check the option to "show an envelope icon in the notification area".

The system tray notification only shows up if messages hit your inbox - so, any messages processed processed by server side rules that redirect messages to server folders will not hit your inbox and thus not trigger the notification in the system tray. However, if you have a client side rule that directs messages to a personal folder, it should still hit your inbox before redirecting to the personal folder thus triggering the notification. Not the greatest workaround, but it should work.

Or, as you are using Outlook 2007, you should have able to "at a glance" see which folders have new/unread items.. every subfolder can show either the number of total items or the number of unread items.. very useful to see at a glance which folders have new items (please don't tell me you leave messages 'unread' - that's what the nice new quickflags are great for in Outlook 2007 - quickflags combined with searchfolders and I rarely actually create subfolder anymore. I use the wonderful search folders and keep all my mail organized that way).

 

[Punkrulz]

Thanks Fitz. Yeah there are quite a few server side rules that I'm sure redirect them directly to their folder and not my inbox. I could setup client side, however if I check my webmail or terminal server from home to work, that will defeat the entire purpose. I definitely don't leave messages unread, and that's what I do now; switch over to Outlook with all of my folders expanded, and scroll down the list until I note how many unread messages are in the folder.

That's what I wanted to try to avoid, however it seems like it's inevitable. Thanks!