Tidy Orders

Receipt forwarding

Forward receipts from Outlook to Tidy Orders

Outlook calls them rules instead of filters, but the idea is identical to Gmail: match only purchase confirmations and forward those to your Tidy Orders inbound address. Everything else stays in your mailbox.

6 min read Updated August 19, 2026
Goal: receipts, invoices, and order confirmations land in your review queue automatically — and nothing else does.

Before you start

Open Tidy Orders in another tab and go to Integrations.

  1. Find the Email Forwarding card.
  2. Copy your unique address — it looks like receipts+your-alias@inbound.tidyorders.com.
  3. Keep that tab open; you'll paste the address into Outlook in a moment.

These steps cover Outlook.com / Hotmail / Live and Microsoft 365 work or school accounts. Both use the same rules engine on the web at outlook.com. Rules created on the web also run server-side, so they work even when your desktop Outlook is closed — rules built only in the classic desktop app run when the app is open.

Step 1: test one receipt manually

Confirm a single receipt parses correctly before you automate anything.

  1. Open Outlook on the web and find a recent receipt or order confirmation.
  2. Choose Forward and send it to your Tidy Orders address.
  3. Open Review Queue and look for the new pending transaction.

Good receipt candidates

  • Show merchant name, order date, and total amount.
  • Are the original merchant email, not a screenshot pasted into a message.
  • Include the full thread if the total only appears in an earlier reply.

Step 2: create a targeted Outlook rule

  1. In Outlook on the web, open Settings (gear icon) → Mail → Rules.
  2. Select Add new rule and give it a name such as Tidy Orders receipts.
  3. Add a condition. From works best — it accepts several addresses in the same condition, and any one of them triggers the rule. Subject includes covers keywords like receipt, invoice, or order confirmation.
  4. Add the action Forward to and paste your Tidy Orders address.
  5. Add a second action — Mark with a category or Move to folder — so you can audit what was forwarded.
  6. Leave Stop processing more rules unchecked unless you know you want it.
  7. Save.

A key Outlook detail: when you stack multiple different conditions on one rule, they combine with AND — a message must satisfy all of them. So put every merchant address inside a single From condition (that list behaves as OR), and create a separate rule when you want subject keywords as well. Also note that rules skip anything Outlook already routed to Junk, so whitelist merchant senders you care about.

Outlook Forward sends the receipt as an attached message, while Redirect preserves the original sender. Use Forward — Tidy Orders reads the attached original either way, and forwarding keeps the audit trail pointed at your mailbox.

From: auto-confirm@amazon.com — Forward to: receipts+your-alias@inbound.tidyorders.com

Step 3: apply the rule to existing mail

New rules only affect incoming mail. To backfill, open Rules, hover the rule, and choose Run rule now — Outlook will process matching messages already in your Inbox. If you have months of history, expect a burst of transactions in the review queue, and watch your monthly transaction allowance.

Important: do not turn on account-wide forwarding under Settings → Mail → Forwarding. That sends every message, including personal and client mail, into your purchase workflow. Rules keep it scoped.

If you're on a Microsoft 365 work account

Many organizations block automatic external forwarding through an anti-spam outbound policy. If your rule saves but nothing arrives, that's usually why — the message is silently dropped by Exchange Online.

  • Ask your admin to allow forwarding to inbound.tidyorders.com, or to add an exception for your mailbox.
  • If that isn't possible, forward receipts manually, or use the Upload tab to drop PDFs and screenshots directly.
  • Shared mailboxes need the rule created while signed in to that mailbox, not your personal one.

Recommended rule criteria

  • Senders: receipts@, orders@, billing@, invoices@, no-reply@ addresses from merchants you actually buy from.
  • Subject terms: receipt, invoice, order confirmation, payment, subscription, renewal.
  • Skip: newsletters, promotions, shipping-only notices, and support threads.

If an email doesn't prove an amount was paid, don't forward it.

Step 4: review the first week

Match Forwarded receipts should map to the right vendor and amount.
Trim Delete rules that pull in marketing or shipping updates.
Tune Set vendor defaults once you approve repeat purchases.

Microsoft references

Microsoft documents inbox rules and the difference between server-side and client-only rules in its help for managing email with rules.