Be the first to 
Auto-Mate could be smarter about suggesting rules, and relying less on moving messages from mailbox to mailbox and more on search folders would be nice.
- Auto-Mate runs filters automatically to organize your mail in the background
- Many powerful actions are combined with flexible rule criteria in Auto-Mate
- Auto-Mate comes with a set of default filters that clean up mail on their own
- Auto-Mate could be smarter and more automatic about suggesting folders for filing
- Creating custom rules in Auto-Mate can be a bit overwhelming
- Auto-Mate does not integrate with Outlook contacts, could use search folders
- Auto-Mate Pro adds powerful and flexible filter actions to Outlook.
- Acting as a personal assistant, Auto-Mate Pro scans and filters periodically, cleaning up after you.
- Auto-Mate Pro rules can be triggered by contents, but also message status and age in a folder.
- You can have Auto-Mate move mail, mark or flag it, send replies, assign categories, and more.
- A smart rule builder takes any email's parameters for creating an Auto-Mate filter.
- A "Snooze" button lets you postpone a message. It will return to your Inbox after a set interval.
- You can test-run Auto-Mate filters, seeing what their effects would be.
- Auto-Mate filters can be exported and imported for backup and copying.
- Auto-Mate supports Windows 2000/3/XP and Outlook 2000/2/3.
Auto-Mate can do the filing, deleting, marking and cleaning for you. Running filters not only when a message is received or sent but at flexible intervals and taking into account a message's status and age, Auto-Mate can organize your Outlook Inbox like I would (if I would).
Setting up the filters can be a bit intimidating (Auto-Mate offers a plethora of possible actions from automatic forwarding to removing attachments or sending replies), but thankfully a smart set of filters is included. Read mail is archived and messages flagged for follow-up moved to a "To Do" folder automatically.
It makes sense to add a few more filters to purge unneeded mail or further archive the valuable, but the default rules are a great starting place. You could also escalate mail from the Inbox if you have not acted on it for a day, for example. Like some of the advanced rule actions, a oft-helpful "Snooze" button that hides a message from the Inbox for anything from an hour to a month is only available in the Pro edition of Auto-Mate.
It would be nice if Auto-Mate could build on and extend search folders instead of relying on physical mailboxes.
