How to direct auto-replies to the clutter folder in Outlook?
What would be the best way to go about directing all auto-replies to the clutter folder? This seems like a great use for the clutter folder; you send a message to the office and get 30 "out of the office" auto-replies - it would be nice if all of these put themselves into the clutter folder!
I have tried dragging auto-replies to the clutter folder but then the legitimate replies to the same message also get put into clutter, and that's not good. I would just like the auto-replies to go there. I could not find a default option for this (seems like an oversight). I also tried to create a rule but did not see the Clutter folder as an option to route messages to. So, I thought I'd brainstorm here on it.
(Microsoft Outlook 2016 on Windows 7)
I was able to set-up a rule in the rule in e-mail rules to do this. The rule sends all e-mails with "Automatic Reply" in the subject line to the Clutter folder. When I attempted this the first time I did not see the "Clutter" folder. However, upon a second attempt I discovered that it was down near the bottom of the list off of the screen, whereas in my mail home screen it is at the top by default, so it was just the change of position that confused me. What further confused me was that most everything else seemed to be in the same order. I tested the rule and it works.
For an explanation of how to set-up the rule, see the Microsoft support article below.
Manage email messages by using rules
The short answer is, there's no setting for it. You'll have to move things into and/or out of it a few times for it to pick up on what you do want in there, and what you do not want in there.
The long answer is that folder is theoretically using a supervised machine learning algorithm to monitor what you move in and out of there to predict which ones to move in automatically from that point forward. This means you'll have to spend time, probably on an ongoing basis, teaching it what should be moved to the clutter folder. The more you use it, the better it should do.
Some reference: http://mvnoblog.com/microsoft-rolls-out-outlook-smart-clutter-filter-to-its-office-365-business-customers/
"More specifically, Microsoft uses machine learning to move lower priority messages into a new Clutter folder. Clutter learns from your actions to figure out which messages you are likely to ignore by using Office Graph, the productivity suite’s social feature that keeps track of your meetings, tasks, and anything else you do."