Auto-Categorize Your Inbox with Outlook Copilot Rules

What This Does

Outlook Copilot helps you create email rules using plain English instructions, automatically sorting inbound advisor inquiries, wire requests, NIGO responses, and KYC document submissions into organized folders — so you stop triaging your inbox manually every morning.

Before You Start

• You have Microsoft Outlook open (desktop app)
• You're signed into a Microsoft 365 account with Copilot
• You have a general sense of the main types of emails you receive (wire requests, NIGO responses, account opening requests, advisor status inquiries)

Steps

1. Open Copilot in Outlook

Click the Copilot button in the Outlook toolbar (Home ribbon, right side). The Copilot panel opens.

2. Ask Copilot to create an email rule

In the Copilot chat box, describe the rule you want in plain English.

What to type: "Create a rule: when I receive an email with 'wire transfer' or 'wire request' in the subject line, move it to a folder called 'Wire Requests' and mark it as high priority."

3. Copilot shows you the rule it will create

Review the rule summary Copilot displays. Confirm it captures what you want — it will show the condition (subject contains keywords) and action (move to folder).

4. Click Apply

Copilot creates the rule and applies it to future incoming emails. You can also ask it to apply the rule to your existing inbox to retroactively organize old emails.

5. Create rules for other email types

Repeat for your other main categories:

• "Create a rule: emails with 'NIGO' or 'not in good order' in subject → move to NIGO folder"
• "Create a rule: emails from @dtcc.com or @broadridge.com → move to Counterparties folder"
• "Create a rule: emails with 'KYC' or 'AML' or 'documentation request' in subject → move to KYC folder"

Real Example

Scenario: You receive 60+ emails a day mixing wire requests, status inquiries, NIGO responses, system alerts, and team messages. Every morning you spend 20–30 minutes triaging before you can actually work.

What you do: Create 4 rules (Wire Requests, NIGO/Compliance, System Alerts, Advisor Inquiries). Each morning, your inbox is pre-sorted. You start with Wire Requests (time-sensitive), then NIGO Responses, then everything else.

Time saved: 15–20 minutes of triage per day.

Tips

• Start with 2–3 rules for your highest-volume categories — too many rules can create conflicts
• If a rule moves something it shouldn't, ask Copilot: "Edit the Wire Requests rule to also include emails containing 'outgoing wire'"
• You can ask Copilot to "show me all my current email rules" to review or clean up old ones

Tool interfaces change — if the rule creation interface has moved, try Rules → Manage Rules & Alerts from the Home ribbon.