Is it possible to edit .rwz files?

I can import the file into Excel, Word, Wordpad etc. but the file format is gobeldegook.

If it is not possible now does anyone on the beta MS Office Program know whether it will be possible when their new release comes out later this year?

Huh?


A rwz file is an Outlook Profile rules file. As such it is a data file used only by Outlook. Why on earth would you want to edit it?

There are many reasons for editing Outlook rules files. Here are just a couple:

1) I have several hundred rules that file emails into various folders and although Microsoft allow prioritising them manually by using the Move Up / Move Down icon, it would be much better to run a program that would allow them to be sorted into alphabetical order. If subsequently you would then like some rules to run before or after others you could then manually move them in the much slower Microsoft way. This would aid finding the individual rules for editing etc.

2) I have some rules that act on specific words and phrases. Rather than manually editing these rules to add new or modified words and phrases it would be better if there was a way to paste new words and phrases directly into the specific rule rather than just one at a time.

Fair enough. Obviously you make more use of them than anyone else that I've come across.

But I'm afraid I don't know a way of editing them outside Outlook. You'd really need info from Microsoft as to how the data is coded and I rather doubt that they'd supply that for obvious reasons.

Most Outlook rules that I use and come across on our 100+ client base follow the rough form:

IF STRING IN SENDER = X
MOVE TO FOLDER X
STOP PROCESSING MORE RULES

Since creating multiple such rules is not possible using Microsoft's Rules Wizard and since you can't edit the file that the Rules Export creates. Do you know of any third party software that you could use instead of Microsoft's Rules Wizard that would allow this?

This is not an uncommon request and I have been asked a similarly worded question more than a dozen times by people in our client base.

Personally I don't know of any but some of the others might have suggestions.........

Did you find an editor to create and maintail rules? I have 50+ rules and would like an easy way to edit and change them, further I allways get into troubles when I change notebook.

Regards, Tais

The Rules system is a real problem in Outlook, it's very weak. The major problem I'm having is figuring out how to create rules that act on both Incoming and Outgoing emails: "Put all mail going to and coming from Fred into the Fred folder."

Why does Microsoft make this so difficult? It's a very basic concept that should have been there years ago. Yet either it simply can't be done now (in Outlook 2007 even), or it's well hidden! All I can figure out is that you need two separate rules to do this...which is why I went looking for a way to edit these .rwz files.

I'm a long-term geek; I'm switching over from Eudora (which makes this much easier, though even the Eudora team could have made it a few clicks easier), and I have literally hundreds of filters. I do a huge amount of business via email, so I like to optimize the whole process.

Microsoft, where the hell are you? What on earth were you thinking building a shoddy essential feature like this, while at the same time adding dozens of features nobody will use?!

Did anything come of this? I whole-heartedly agree with all that's said about Outlook's rules..sums up Msofts view of the universe IMO. However I DO want to be able to edit me rules [you can in Outlook Express, though its a bit of a hack]

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost....33&SiteID=1

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta :

http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/default.aspx?siteid=17

hello my Friends

i have the same problem i want to create and edit lots of rules automaticly

but cant edit these dam rwz files.

i tried this 2 links above to microsoft forums, but didnt find any answer there eighter.


did someone find a solution now?

help would be realy great


tanks and cheers nedal

Yep, same here. I have so many rules for moving messages to folders when they arrive from our vendors. I don't have a quick way of performing this task. Also this needs to be done for every recipient who gets these messages (3 total). So now 50+ rules just turned into 150+ rules. Add that to the fact that we get new vendors every so often and the rules need to be updated, it is a nightmare. Even though you can export/import rules, there has got to be a better way then editing each rule wizard 1 by 1.

If you are able to use Outlook 2007 and write your own code, there may be hope to manage rules directly within Outlook...

"Managing Rules in the Outlook Object Model":
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb206763.aspx

What I would like would be to automatically combine right-click-generated rules that move messages to the same folder into one rule for easier management.

For example, imagine I've received email from John, Jane, and Jim and I've right-clicked their address to create a rule to move their email to the "Jobs" folder and as I've received email from Sam, Sue, and Steve, I've created rules to move their email to a "Sales" folder.

So, now I have 6 rules where could do the job just as well.

I have dabbled a bit in VBA and used to be really good in WordBasic (circa 1993) though now I do mostly PHP. This is my first visit to this board (found thread through Google), but I'll bookmark it in case I ever come up with something.

Dave

Well it is now July 2009, and has the problem been solved? If only I could print out all my rules, I would be quite happy to use the constraints of Outlook to edit them. This week, I found an email from a very important client consigned to the Deleted Items bin. Thank goodness I am not in auto delete mode!!