Outloook rules - When are they triggered!

[Jeevan]

Hi,

I use Office XP and Outlook as my email client and have
incoming mail from the exchange server moved into my local
PST file.

Have a set of rules to move mails which are from "My Junk
Senders" list to be moved to the 'Deleted items' folder
automatically.

But when does this rule get executed?
If my client is kept running over night, the next morning
I do see a collection of deleted junk mail (in the deleted
mails folder)
But when I am simply watching the screen, and a junk mail
comes in, it moves into the 'Inbox' folder - local PST but
takes a long while (5+ mins)until the rule picks it for
processing.

Is this delay configurable ?

g1

[Matthew Tisdel]

This is not configurable in any meaningful way. Outlook waits for a what is called "MAPI Idle Time" and then executes rules, sniffing and some other background functions. There is a complex formula in there somewhere that Outlook figures out when this is, but the main componant is your CPU idle time. So, if you were running Outlook 2003 on Windows XP on a Pentium 66 with 64 Megs of RAM, then you would likely never have your rules run. However, on a modern machine the background tasks will be able to run pretty often. However, part of the formula does say that it will not run immediately upon opening Outlook, even if there is idle time.

--
Matthew Tisdel
South Carolina