Don’t let senders flag message with Reminder for me

Lately, people tend to send me messages which are already flagged and have a follow up reminder.

Is there a way to disable these type of remote flags and reminders?

While these type of messages should no longer trigger a reminder (the set reminder will be disabled automatically), they will still show up in red as “overdue e-mail” when the proposed follow up time came and went.

Also, these messages will still hold the special “flagged by sender” icon Flag for Recipient and an Infobar at the top of the message with the “Follow up” text and the suggested time and date for the item to be completed.

Clear the Message Flag rule

To fully clear the message of any preset flagging information, and claim back control over your own mailbox view and schedule, you can create the following rule;

Apply this rule after the message arrives
flagged for Any
clear the Message Flag

Optional: Exceptions or additional actions

You can of course add some exceptions to the rule for people/senders who do use these features properly.

Another variation would be to add an action to assign these type of messages a category named “Follow up requested by sender”. This would be much less intrusive as it won’t hold a flag icon, nor would it display the message in red once by the date and time set by the sender is reached.