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Frequently asked questions. About the author. Outlook is a tool to help you manage your email messages, calendar, contacts, and tasks. To get the most out of Outlook, we suggest a few basic principles:. Reduce the number of places where you read messages.

If you're using a new version of Microsoft , you can use Focused Inbox for Outlook to automatically separate the types of messages you're most likely to read right away from other messages. Let some messages pass by. Use rules to send the messages that you don't need to read right away into their own folders. Such as folders for projects or Contact Group folders.

Reduce the number of places where you manually file messages. Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages. Reduce your to-do list to one list. Use a single to-do list and a single calendar to manage what you need to do.

Even if you don't use all of the best practices described here, following only a few will improve your experience with Outlook. The first step in following these best practices is to set up a system to optimize how you use Outlook. The Navigation Pane open on the left. Your messages in Conversations view , with messages sent directly to you automatically formatted in blue. The Reading Pane on the right. The To-Do Bar open on the far right. If your screen resolution is less than by pixels, the To-Do Bar can be minimized.

Cached Exchange Mode turned on. For details on how to set up the recommended layout, see the FAQ section. An Inbox for messages that you need to process deal with. Your Inbox is for messages sent directly to you or that could be important for you to read. If you receive many messages that go back and forth among several different people, change to Conversations view. Otherwise, use the date arrangement the default arrangement. Use automatic formatting rules to make all messages sent only to you blue.

A single reference folder, under the Inbox, for all reference material that you might want to refer back to later. Nothing is automatically filed that is, with a rule into this folder.

Name this folder 1-Reference. Adding the 1- will cause it to be the first item under the Inbox. This folder is created under the Inbox so that you can collapse the Inbox and remove it from view. Set this folder to auto archive annually.

Note: If this folder becomes too large 10, items or more , Outlook might become slow when switching to this folder. A folder for career-related, private, and personal messages.

Having a separate folder for personal and career-related information gives you the freedom to search for a message while someone is standing over your shoulder without worrying that a personally sensitive message will appear. Name this folder 2-Personal. Managers might have a single folder for feedback on their employees called 3-Management.

Set these folders to auto archive annually. A set of folders for Contact Group messages. Create a single, top-level folder under your Inbox called Contact Groups , and then create a subfolder for each topic of Contact Groups. Usually, one folder per Contact Group is enough, but if you are on several related Contact Groups, consider having all of the messages delivered to the same folder.

These messages should go directly to your Inbox. Set your Contact Group folders to auto archive every six months or more frequently if they are time sensitive — for example, a Contact Group for finding carpool rides should be archived daily. A set of folders for RSS Feeds. Outlook creates these folders automatically. Search folders are useful for gathering information from across different mail and RSS folders.

Search folders can be especially useful when you need to gather information that is saved in different folders — for example, when preparing for a quarterly meeting. If you receive a large volume of messages more than messages a day , search folders might be a good way for you to parse mail from different senders. Favorites give visibility to folders that are otherwise buried in your mail folder list. Favorites , a subset of your mail folders, appear at the top of the navigation pane. The goal of organizing your Outlook is to reduce the amount of unnecessary "noise" in your Inbox and to make the most important items bubble to the top.

Rules help this process by moving messages into folders based on criteria that you set. Rules filter the messages coming into your Inbox for must-read items only. You can see who has accepted by checking the tracking tab inside the meeting window. Defer Sent Items This rule delays sending messages by one minute or longer. When using this rule, make sure that your messages have been sent before you shut down your computer. Multiple Contact Groups that are similar should use the same rule and be filed in the same folder.

Any messages that you must read should go directly into your Inbox. The To-Do Bar is the panel on the right side of Outlook. It shows you a calendar, your upcoming appointments, and your unified task list, which contains:. Show favorite contacts. The default arrangement for tasks is by Due Date, but you might consider changing the arrangement to Start Date, depending upon how you use flags. If you want to see the tasks that you have pushed out for next week on Monday, arrange by Start Date.

If you want to see tasks on the day that they are due, arrange by Due Date. If you receive a lot of messages or are easily distracted by the notification sound that plays for incoming messages, we recommend turning off the following options:.

The new mail pop-up alerts. To change these settings, select the File button, select Options , and then select Mail. Categories in Outlook allow you to manage items in many different ways. There are three main types of categories that we recommend creating:. For example, they can help you more easily identify what you can do now and help you group similar tasks so that you can do them all at once. Each of your direct reports and your manager for items that you want to review the next time you meet for example, a category named Manager.

Each of the major locations or types of activities that you do, so that you can perform bulk actions a useful part of managing your tasks , for example:.

Commute for tasks that you can do on the way home from work. Email for tasks that involve email messages, meetings, or any other aspect of Outlook. Meeting for items that you need in order to prepare for a meeting. Offline for tasks that take you away from the computer, such as making a copy of a document. Online for tasks that you can accomplish only online or through a Web browser. Read for tasks that involve just reading — not responding.

Waiting for messages or tasks for which you are awaiting a response, but there is no explicit next action for you. Note: Using the symbol makes the categories stand out in your category list. Marking before certain categories helps to keep these categories at the top of your category list and reminds you of where you should be when you are performing this task for example, Phone is "at the phone". Each important topic or project so that you can easily find messages on a given topic — especially if there is no word in the body or subject of the message that would make it appear in a search.

You can apply multiple categories to a single item — as opposed to filing, where items can live in only one folder at a time. For example, an important message that you want to discuss with your manager before you respond might be categorized with both the Email category and the Manager category. As you will see, categories help messages and tasks stand out in your To-Do Bar, make searching more efficient, and help you get ready for meetings.

Note: Be very careful about categorizing your outgoing messages — your recipients might be able to see your categories. Quick Steps give you the ability to perform multiple actions in one click.

They are a useful tool to help you keep a clean inbox and to generally be more efficient at using Outlook. Any time you find yourself repeatedly doing the same steps in Outlook, try creating a Quick Step. For more information, see Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps :. In addition to Quick Steps listed above, depending upon your job and your general day to day activities, you might want to create the following types of Quick Steps:. You categorize many of your messages before you file them to help you find them later.

Create one per category you use often. You are flagging things for different dates, such as Tomorrow, This Week, etc. Create one per flag you use often. You use a few categories to help you understand what context your tasks are.

Example: Read: Flags for tomorrow, categorizes with Read category. You receive some messages from Contact Groups in your Inbox due to rules, inadvertently. Example: You have a rule to file all messages from Contact Group foo into a folder, unless it has the word bar anywhere in the body.

After you start creating Quick Steps, you will find that there might be other ways that you can optimize the number of clicks required to get something done.

Whenever you find yourself doing the same thing repeatedly, try creating a Quick Step. And as projects change, update your Quick Steps so that they are only the things you really do. Once you set up your system, you are ready to begin managing incoming messages. By making your Inbox the central place for receiving important messages, you can go through it with the confidence that each item is something you need to deal with.

If you need to do it, but it takes longer than two minutes including reading , defer hold off on it. If you need it as reference even if you have decided to defer it , move it into your reference folder. The goal is to reduce the number of times you touch each message. If you never want to receive another message as part of this conversation, ignore it.

For example, many messages can be responded to in two minutes or less. But if a message takes longer than two minutes to deal with, defer it.

To get a sense of what two minutes feels like, try timing yourself. File it in one of your reference folders for example, 1-Reference using a Quick Step. To keep a record of the things that you have done, especially for the purposes of reflection around the time of annual reviews or for preparing reports, use the Done Quick Step, which also marks messages as completed.

Sometimes you receive a message that is really meant for someone else to deal with. In these cases, reply and include the person you're delegating the message to on the To line. If you find you're doing this often, consider creating a Quick Step that replies and adds the delegated person to the To line. If you want to follow up later, flag it for yourself before sending. In your To-Do Bar, mark the task with the Waiting category. If you will need to refer to the message more than once and you want easy access to it, drag it to the Later group in the To-Do Bar.

If you find that you are repeatedly applying the same categories and flags, create a new Quick Step that flags, categorizes, and files. Once an item has been flagged, it will appear in the To-Do Bar. By flagging it and filing it into your reference folder, you have processed it, and now you can move it out of your view. Change the name of the task by selecting it in the To-Do Bar or right clicking on it and selecting Rename Task.

You can also add a category to help you see at a glance where your next action is. A quick glance at your To-Do Bar with categorized tasks lets you know what is immediately actionable Office , which tasks you are waiting on other people for Waiting , and what you will be meeting about Meeting. After you process your messages, you can tackle your task list. This is when you respond to those messages that you have deferred. A good example is a message with instructions.

File these messages in your reference folder 1-Reference by selecting your Reference Quick Step. Adding a category will make the message easier to find later if you need it for example, Project. Do this before filing with your Quick Step. After you finish processing your messages, you should have a clean Inbox and can switch your focus to your calendar and tasks. This includes:. As you review your calendar and your task list, be realistic about what you can accomplish.

Sometimes that means saying no. Here are some ways to gain back time by saying no:. Send messages to let people know that you are working on a response and make sure to flag it for yourself on send.

The reality is that if you have a day filled with meetings, you have less time to complete tasks and write messages, so move tasks to other days. As you go through your calendar and tasks, inevitably you will start thinking of more things you need to do.

Here are some ways to create tasks in Outlook:. If you are in a meeting, take notes in OneNote. Flagged items in OneNote appear in the Outlook task list. Add tasks as they come to you by typing in the Type a new task box in the To-Do Bar or in the top of Task list, in a blank space in the Daily Task List, or by selecting New Task in the ribbon. Clean out tasks that you don't need to do. For flagged messages that you want to keep, select Remove from List , otherwise, just Delete.

Make tasks more actionable by changing the task subject of a flagged message. To change the task subject, select the item in the To-Do Bar and type a new subject or right click, and then select Rename Task. Only the subject you see in your task list changes. Create and assign color categories to help you identify where you need to be to take the next step and to make some tasks stand out.

Rearrange your tasks to group together similar tasks, such as tasks with the same category. To move a task, select the task in the task list and drag it. In this way, you can work on similar tasks together. For tasks that will take some time, drag the tasks onto the calendar to set aside time to get these tasks done.

The process of managing your task list shouldn't take over your life! As part of good time management, you need time to deal with your messages, manage your appointments and tasks, and reflect on what you have to do.

You can schedule this time for yourself with regular appointments and meetings on your calendar. Your calendar should be treated as your real plan for your time — if you have scheduled it, then that is what you are committed to doing at that time. Deal with your messages.

Setting aside time to deal with messages is especially important if you receive a lot of messages. Even if you have rules set up so that only the important messages appear in your Inbox, you still need time to deal with those messages. Tip: When processing and reading your messages, remove visual clutter by minimizing the Navigation Pane and To-Do Bar by selecting the Reading button in the status bar.

To go back to everything open, select Normal just to the left of Reading. Do a daily and weekly review of your tasks and appointments. Look at your calendar and tasks, and evaluate your appointments and tasks against your priorities. If you have a busy calendar, this is the time for:. Reflecting on what you're doing, whether it's a valuable use of your time, and whether you're setting the right priorities.

Meet regularly with your manager. Regular meetings with your manager can help you explain what you are working on and reset priorities where needed. To set up a regular or recurring meeting, select Recurrence. Looking at the whole picture of your time and your tasks will help you to prioritize important work over less urgent tasks.

Reviewing your past week and upcoming week is also a useful way to help you prepare for a weekly meeting with your manager or help you prepare a status email message. After you have processed your messages, the best place to do work in Outlook reply to messages and so on is in Tasks. As you go through your task list and your calendar, do similar tasks together.

For example, if you have only a few minutes, make all of your phone calls if you have just a few. Tackle energy-intensive tasks for some, that might be responding to messages when you have more energy. Deal with your low-energy tasks, such as reading status messages, later in the day or whenever your energy is lower. By "bulk processing" your tasks, you will make progress on all of your projects simultaneously.

To do this, select the Arranged By heading, and then select Categories. Note: If you have tasks that are blocking other people from getting their work done, do those tasks first.

As you finish your tasks, mark them complete. Outlook keeps the list of your completed tasks automatically. This can be a useful summary of what you've accomplished. If you don't need to keep a record of the task or the message, delete it or clear the flag. If you have a lot of work to do, consider going offline to stem the tide of incoming message distractions. When you switch between working online and offline, all email accounts within your Outlook profile are changed.

If you want to find a message from a particular person, select the Search box in any folder, and then on the Search tab, select From. Or, start by typing the name in the Search box, and then press the down arrow key to select From to narrow the results.

To find a message with an attachment, select the Search box and on the Search tab, select Has Attachments. All search terms are additive, so if you want to find a message from someone with attachments, select the commands on the ribbon From , Has Attachments to build your search. In these cases, start by searching in any folder Inbox , 1-Reference , etc.

If you suspect that what you are looking for might be in an accepted meeting request and therefore is on your calendar , try selecting All Outlook Items. If you find that you are often performing searches across your whole mailbox, you can set the default search scope to always search across all folders by going to the Backstage view.

Once you have found the item that you are looking for and are ready to move on to your next task, select the close icon next to the Instant Search box or on the Search tab, in the Close group, select Close Search. Make your subject descriptive and action-oriented. Bold people's names when asking questions. Use a signature when appropriate, but keep your signature simple, short, professional, and if possible, free of graphics. If you are on an email conversation that has more than ten messages without a resolution, consider setting up a meeting to discuss the issue.

With the message selected, on the Home tab, in the Respond group, select Meeting. Acknowledge messages that require a more extensive response.

If you are too busy to respond with a full answer right away, let the sender know that you are looking into the issue and will respond by a certain time or date. Flag it for yourself to do later. Use High Importance sparingly. If you are asking a question and there are several people who could respond, choose just one person rather than sending your question to a group.

When you take these three steps, you know that your next action is to send another message or watch for a response. Tip: Reminding yourself to send another message is often more effective than flagging the message for your recipient. Similarly, when you promise to do something in a message, flag it for yourself so that you have a task in your To-Do Bar to remind you. Don't send a message when you are angry. Better to write it, save it to your drafts folder, and come back to it later.

Don't send a follow-up message less than a day after the first message.

 

Microsoft outlook 2019 tips and tricks free.5 Ways to Reduce Your Outlook Mailbox Size

 

This article was written by the product team that created Microsoft Outlook for the best possible reason — our customers asked. Outlook is designed to be used by a wide audience with many work needs and styles. Although there's no one "right way," there are a few ways of working in the program that we know to be easier than others.

We hope that by being aware of the best practices, you will have the best experience possible using Outlook. This guide represents our advice on how to get the most out of Outlook. A few core scenarios are covered to help you leverage Outlook into your information management needs.

Spend lots of time every day using Outlook to send and receive messages and to set up or attend meetings. Basic principles of good time management. Setting up Outlook The layout. To-Do Bar. Quick Steps. Tame your Inbox with the four Ds. Daily review: Managing your time and tasks. Tasks: Doing your work. Find that message: Searching effectively. How to find a message from a particular person. Write great email messages. Calendar and meetings. Frequently asked questions. About the author. Outlook is a tool to help you manage your email messages, calendar, contacts, and tasks.

To get the most out of Outlook, we suggest a few basic principles:. Reduce the number of places where you read messages. If you're using a new version of Microsoft , you can use Focused Inbox for Outlook to automatically separate the types of messages you're most likely to read right away from other messages. Let some messages pass by. Use rules to send the messages that you don't need to read right away into their own folders.

Such as folders for projects or Contact Group folders. Reduce the number of places where you manually file messages. Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages.

Reduce your to-do list to one list. Use a single to-do list and a single calendar to manage what you need to do. Even if you don't use all of the best practices described here, following only a few will improve your experience with Outlook. The first step in following these best practices is to set up a system to optimize how you use Outlook.

The Navigation Pane open on the left. Your messages in Conversations view , with messages sent directly to you automatically formatted in blue. The Reading Pane on the right. The To-Do Bar open on the far right.

If your screen resolution is less than by pixels, the To-Do Bar can be minimized. Cached Exchange Mode turned on. For details on how to set up the recommended layout, see the FAQ section. An Inbox for messages that you need to process deal with. Your Inbox is for messages sent directly to you or that could be important for you to read. If you receive many messages that go back and forth among several different people, change to Conversations view.

Otherwise, use the date arrangement the default arrangement. Use automatic formatting rules to make all messages sent only to you blue. A single reference folder, under the Inbox, for all reference material that you might want to refer back to later. Nothing is automatically filed that is, with a rule into this folder. Name this folder 1-Reference. Adding the 1- will cause it to be the first item under the Inbox.

This folder is created under the Inbox so that you can collapse the Inbox and remove it from view. Set this folder to auto archive annually. Note: If this folder becomes too large 10, items or more , Outlook might become slow when switching to this folder. A folder for career-related, private, and personal messages. Having a separate folder for personal and career-related information gives you the freedom to search for a message while someone is standing over your shoulder without worrying that a personally sensitive message will appear.

Name this folder 2-Personal. Managers might have a single folder for feedback on their employees called 3-Management. Set these folders to auto archive annually. A set of folders for Contact Group messages. Create a single, top-level folder under your Inbox called Contact Groups , and then create a subfolder for each topic of Contact Groups. Usually, one folder per Contact Group is enough, but if you are on several related Contact Groups, consider having all of the messages delivered to the same folder.

These messages should go directly to your Inbox. Set your Contact Group folders to auto archive every six months or more frequently if they are time sensitive — for example, a Contact Group for finding carpool rides should be archived daily.

A set of folders for RSS Feeds. Outlook creates these folders automatically. Search folders are useful for gathering information from across different mail and RSS folders. Search folders can be especially useful when you need to gather information that is saved in different folders — for example, when preparing for a quarterly meeting. If you receive a large volume of messages more than messages a day , search folders might be a good way for you to parse mail from different senders.

Favorites give visibility to folders that are otherwise buried in your mail folder list. Favorites , a subset of your mail folders, appear at the top of the navigation pane. The goal of organizing your Outlook is to reduce the amount of unnecessary "noise" in your Inbox and to make the most important items bubble to the top. Rules help this process by moving messages into folders based on criteria that you set.

Rules filter the messages coming into your Inbox for must-read items only. You can see who has accepted by checking the tracking tab inside the meeting window.

Defer Sent Items This rule delays sending messages by one minute or longer. When using this rule, make sure that your messages have been sent before you shut down your computer. Multiple Contact Groups that are similar should use the same rule and be filed in the same folder.

Any messages that you must read should go directly into your Inbox. The To-Do Bar is the panel on the right side of Outlook. It shows you a calendar, your upcoming appointments, and your unified task list, which contains:. Show favorite contacts. The default arrangement for tasks is by Due Date, but you might consider changing the arrangement to Start Date, depending upon how you use flags. If you want to see the tasks that you have pushed out for next week on Monday, arrange by Start Date.

If you want to see tasks on the day that they are due, arrange by Due Date. If you receive a lot of messages or are easily distracted by the notification sound that plays for incoming messages, we recommend turning off the following options:. The new mail pop-up alerts. To change these settings, select the File button, select Options , and then select Mail. Categories in Outlook allow you to manage items in many different ways.

There are three main types of categories that we recommend creating:. For example, they can help you more easily identify what you can do now and help you group similar tasks so that you can do them all at once. Each of your direct reports and your manager for items that you want to review the next time you meet for example, a category named Manager.

Each of the major locations or types of activities that you do, so that you can perform bulk actions a useful part of managing your tasks , for example:.

Commute for tasks that you can do on the way home from work. Email for tasks that involve email messages, meetings, or any other aspect of Outlook. Meeting for items that you need in order to prepare for a meeting. Offline for tasks that take you away from the computer, such as making a copy of a document.

Online for tasks that you can accomplish only online or through a Web browser. Read for tasks that involve just reading — not responding. Waiting for messages or tasks for which you are awaiting a response, but there is no explicit next action for you. Note: Using the symbol makes the categories stand out in your category list.