Rules on Attachments

[benjamenus]

Hi

I'm using Outlook 2003. We send out emails from some of our software systems. There is text in these emails that identify which client they are sent to.

Unfortunately a lot of emails bounce, so I'd like to set up a rule that says 'if it is a bounced email, then do an action based on which client it was originally sent to'. However, the bounced email has the original email (which contains the client identifier) as an attachment.

I can't see a way to set up a rule that can examine the contents of an attachment as part of the criteria.

Does anyone know how to do this or can anyone suggest workarounds? For example, we use another email client that includes the original email as inline text (but I can't use this email client for processing the bounces - long story). It would be good if I could get Outlook to stop being 'clever' and treat the whole bounced email as text (is it recognising it as an email because of header info?).

All suggestions welcome. It'll save my team hours of processing!

 

[dallen43]

I don't know if this will help you, but to see email in plain text format:

Tools, Options, Preference Tab, Email Option Button, and check the "Read all standard mail in plain text" box. I'm uncertain if this would include text attachments as part of the body.

 

[benjamenus]

Thanks. It didn't do the trick. In the end I've used an add-in that detatched attachments to a folder. The .eml attachments I then import back into Outlook. Because they are now emails rather than attachments, I can apply rules. A bit convelouted, but it does the trick