ayi Disable alert sounds and Desktop Notifications in Outlook's Options (so that NO messages make the alert sound/box). Create a Rule that plays the same Alert sound and displays a Desktop Notification for every message received. Then, you can either a) Add exceptions to the rule, or b) create other filtering rules (for example, deleting the unwanted messages) and then check off "Stop Processing Rules" on those rules; make sure they are higher up the list than your Alert rule. You'll never even know those messages ever came in.
