A cluttered and unorganized mailbox can make it difficult to find the email you need. This messy situation can be remedied.Microsoft Outlook offers great tools that help you sort your email and organize your messages in meaningful, easy-to-control ways. Outlook can even help increase your efficiency and productivity. Whether you're using Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003, you'll be better able to stay on top of your mail.
Not
using Outlook email at all? Perhaps you're using Outlook Express, or maybe you’re using Windows Live Mail or Windows Live Hotmail. These programs offer some features similar to those
described here for Outlook, but they don’t offer the same breadth of tools for
email management. Use the Microsoft
Office Outlook Hotmail Connector to add
your Hotmail account to Outlook, and then you can use these tips to also
organize your Hotmail. Or read about the Hotmail features that can help you organize information in your
Hotmail system. For instance, you can combine mail from your other email
accounts, like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, so that you can receive, read, and
respond to all your email in one place.
You
can use one or more of the tools covered in this article to help shrink your
Inbox and to make it easier to find the information you need.
1.
Sort messages quickly
Outlook
2010 has a great new feature for organizing messages by date and arranging them
by Conversation. Using this feature, messages that share the same subject
appear as Conversations that can be viewed and expanded or collapsed by
clicking the icon to the left of the Subject line. The messages within each
Conversation are sorted with the newest message on top. When a new message is received,
the entire Conversation moves to the top of your message list, helping to make
tracking email threads a snap.
To
turn on Conversations, on the View tab, in the Conversations group,
select theShow as Conversations check box. You can reduce the size
of a conversation with the Clean Up feature, which deletes duplicate messages
in the Conversation. On theHome tab, in the Delete group,
click Clean Up, and then click
Clean Up Conversation.
In
all versions of Outlook, you can find messages in mailbox folders more quickly
by changing how they're sorted in your email folders. For example, you can
arrange your email by date, sender, file size, or level of importance.
Change
message sorting:
2.
Group similar messages in folders
By
creating new mail folders, you can group messages related to each other. For
example, you can group messages by topic, project, contact, or other categories
that make sense to you. You can even create a folder for all the messages from
your manager or one that include tasks that you have to complete.
·
To create a new folder in Outlook 2010, on the Folder
tab, in the New group, clickNew Folder.
·
To create a new folder in Outlook 2007 or in Outlook 2003, on
the File menu, point to New and then
click Folder.
3.
Create Search Folders to find messages fast
Search
Folders are a quick and convenient way to look at predefined collections of
email messages. They don't actually store any messages themselves but, instead,
are virtual folders that offer a view of all the messages stored in your
mailbox depending on the attributes you've defined. Outlook provides default
Search Folders—such as Unread Mail—but you can also create your own. For
instance, you can use Search Folders to help you find all the information
related to a particular project, an important client, or an upcoming
conference.
·
To create a Search Folder in Outlook 2010, in Mail,
on the Folder tab, in the Newgroup, click New
Search Folder.
·
To create a Search Folder in Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003,
in Mail, on the Filemenu, point to New, and
then click Search Folder.
In
all versions of Outlook, specify whether you want to use a predefined Search
Folder or to create your own custom folder, and then follow the instructions on
the screen.
4.
Route mail efficiently using mailbox rules
By
creating rules for Outlook, you can automatically perform actions on both
incoming and outgoing messages based on criteria you establish. For instance,
you can automatically forward to your manager all messages sent by a certain
person as soon as they arrive, assign the category Sales to all messages you
send that have the word "sales" in the Subject line, and more.
Routing mail efficiently not only organizes your mail for you—but also frees up
your time from performing routing tasks.
Create
and manage rules:
5.
Reduce unwanted email with junk filters
Keep
distracting and unwanted messages out of your Inbox by using Outlook Junk Email
filters. These filters send email flagged as junk to a separate mail folder in
your Mailbox. You can review the contents of this folder to ensure that no
legitimate messages have been sent there, and if they have, you can adjust the
filter to avoid flagging such messages in the future.
Learn
more about the Junk Email filters:
6.
Assign a color category
Assign
a color category to a group of interrelated email messages and to other items
in Outlook, such as notes, contacts, and appointments, so that you can easily
identify and organize them. For example, keep track of all the messages,
meetings, and contacts for the Morris project by creating a category named
Morris project and assigning items to it.
Create
and assign color categories:
7.
Flag for follow up
You
can use the Flag for Follow Up feature to flag email messages and tasks to help
categorize them or to mark them for action. Flags can remind you to follow up
on an issue, indicate a request for someone else, or set a reminder for a
message or contact. They can also make organizing your mail folders a breeze,
because you know exactly what to do—and when to do it. Note that when you create
a task and set a due date, the task is automatically flagged so that you don’t
let that due date slip past you.
Flag
messages:
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