Hey Scott,
What you want to accomplish is very complex. For anyone who doesn't care to read the rest of this thread and just wants an easy add-in instead, go to http://www.techhit.com/autoread/.

Why is this task so complex?

1. The system tray's mail notification icon is not an object you can control directly with VBA. To manipulate it you need to use Windows API functions.

2. Outlook doesn't provide a way to work with rules.

Microsoft does provide RULES.DLL which provides some limited rules functionality, but only with server-side rules. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...cpnts_93hw.asp

Using RULES.DLL and CDO, you could create a rule to monitor incoming junk mail and invoke the Windows API to suppress the mail folder icon.

If you haven't seen it, Outlook does have a built-in Junk Mail filter. Except for OL2003, I believe it appears directly under the Tools | Organize menu. In OL2003 Microsoft moved it to the Tools | Options | Preferences tab. Unfortunately, I think the mail icon will still appear with built-in Junk mail filter since the mail still arrives in your Inbox. I haven't tested that condition, though, since I turn off the mail notification completely on my computers as a time management process.

Cheers,
James