The Arrangement options let you sort emails by Date, Subject and so on. You can configure any of these options either for the current folder or for all mailboxes.Ĭlick View Settings for options for customizing a view, such as adding columns or rearranging their order. Or, choose either 1, 2 or 3 to view that number of lines of the message text beneath its header. There are multiple preset views you can choose, like one that displays the most recent emails only.Īlso on the View tab, you can select Message Previews and choose Off to turn the preview off. To see Oulook’s many customization options, click the View tab on the ribbon toolbar and choose Change View. When you first open your inbox, a default view appears, but it doesn’t have to look this way. View your inbox your way Once your organize the screen the way you want it to look, save the View settings so you can return to them anytime.
These 10 tips will help you zip through your messages and agenda, and work more effectively overall.ġ. What if you finally knew why some of the hyped Outlook features aren’t working as advertised? Consider if you could locate vital contact information in seconds. Imagine if your inbox only showed the messages you wanted to see. Anything that speeds up your work in Outlook can boost your productivity measurably. Combined with PSTs, rules, tagged searching, and the other Outlook features I’ve written about here, Quick Steps helps Outlook be a great hub for your email communications.Keeping track of emails, calendars and contacts can suck untold time out of any workday.
They’re not as powerful as a rule or as completely flexible as a macro, but Quick Steps are yet another handy tool in Outlook to help you keep your mass of messages organized. You can create a Quick Step to perform any of these actions:Īfter creating the Quick Step, use the drop-down at the bottom of the Custom screen to assign an optional keyboard shortcut and write the tooltip so on a mouse-hover you can be reminded what the Quick Step does. This will list all your quick steps, allowing you to edit them, change their order in the list, or create new ones.Ĭlick the “New” button, then choose “Custom”. To create a Quick Step, click on the “Expand” button in the lower-left corner of the Quick Steps panel (shown circled in red below) I click one of my Quick Steps (see the image below), and that will move the selected messages to that folder. My chief use of Quick Steps is to sort emails into folders. Think of it as a home for button-activated macros that you activate with a click (or a keyboard shortcut) - great for keeping your emails organized or to tame an unruly inbox.
These allow you to assign an activity to an icon or keyboard shortcut, much like macros in Word or Excel. Quick Steps were introduced in Outlook 2010. I’ve written about automating your workflow with Outlook files, rules, and tagged searches (here’s a link to all my Outlook articles) - but I have one more Outlook productivity tip to write about: “Quick Steps.” The Quick Steps Two-Step With Office 2010, Microsoft seems to have shaken some of the major bugs out, and when you take advantage of some of the built-in tools to keep things organized, it has become a worthwhile personal information manager for my work life. It used to be something I did with a lot of grumbling, but I have to admit that I’ve come to like it.
I seem to live most of my professional life in Outlook. Outlook automation is possible using the “Quick Steps” feature.