Can you confirm these major restrictions in Outlook's filters (Options|Rules for sorting new messages):

1. New emails arriving into my Outlook.com email account via the Outlook POP3 client bypass my new mail filtering rules.

Say I have set up my Outlook.com email account to retrieve emails from my Gmail account using Outlook's POP3 client.

The emails arriving into Outlook seem to completely bypass my new mail filtering fules.

The rules do of course work for emails arriving directly to Outlook, not via POP3.

(Note: Gmail filters DO operate on email retrieved via Gmail's POP3 client)

2. There seems be be a maximum of ONE forwarding rule in Outlook.com

When I add a second forwarding rule, I get the error message:

"You have reached the forwarding rule limit. To add a new forwarding rule, please delete an existing one"

Is the limit really ONE forwarding rule?

Gmail allows 20.

3.  Is only one selection criterion allowed per rule?

When I enter (for example) Sender's address there seems to be no facility either to enter other sender addresses or To or Subject fields in the same rule.

Again this facility is available in Gmail.

4. Is only one action allowed per rule?

Once I select one action, I cannot select another as well.

For example, I cannot select forward and delete in the same rule.

Again, available in Gmail.

5. No exit facility

There seems to be no "do not process other rules if this rule is true" facility.

This is very useful for complex processing.

Gmail also seems to lack this facility.

6. No way of ordering the rules.

There seems to be no way for me to set the order for rules.

This is an important feature for logical testing, especially where early exit (above) is not supported.

Gmail is clumsy doing this by either:

- edit/save all relevant rules to get the order correct

- export to an XML file, re-order and import

but at least it can be done.

7. Can filters be set to generate mobile phone alerts?

Some time ago I alerted you, via this forum, that the claim on the filters options page that the option to "set alerts for your mobile phone" is NOT available and this was CONFIRMED. Its time to remove this claim if its still not available. Note this does not refer to retrieving emails on a smartphone but to getting an SMS text message notifying the receipt of an email.

There's a lot of issues raised here so take some time to read them...

My questions relate to Outlook's general stup, and NOT to my account.

Thanks.