How to create Mail Flow Rule

Question

I am managing the email flow rules for Microsoft Office 365 Exchange administrators.

I currently have a functional basic email flow rule. For example:

• If the sender has domain xyz@abc
• Mark spam confidence at 8
• Except if IP range is x.xxx.xxx.xxx

Great, no trouble, working fine.

What I want is to apply stricter exceptions. For example:

• If the sender has domain xyz@abc
• Mark spam confidence at 8
• Except if IP range is x.xxx.xxx.xxx
• AND Except if recipient is in the list xyz-managers

To my knowledge, this is impossible. The only option I can find is to allow exceptions linked by OR instead of AND.

Is there a way to directly or indirectly implement this logic? It seems strange that it is not available.

thank you

Answer 1

Hi, @TomCruise-7376

It sounds like you're looking to create more complex exceptions to your email flow rules.

You're right. In Exchange Online, exceptions in mail flow rules are typically connected via OR rather than AND. This means that if any of the exceptions are met, the rules will not apply. The best indirect way to implement this logic is if you want to turn an exception into an AND relationship, you can create multiple rules to achieve a similar effect.

For example, you can create two rules, the first one checking the first condition and the second rule checking the second condition. The transport rule is applied only if neither rule is satisfied.

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