Tips and Tricks for increasing your efficiency in Microsoft Outlook
1. Creating and managing folders
Creating and managing folders in Outlook can help you keep track of important emails/ information and quickly access emails that you know will be of importance in the future.
An APPR related folder will be of great assistance as you
collect artifacts and evidence for the Elements that you’ve chosen for this year’s Teacher Evaluation process.
• To create a new folder, right click on the icon label ‘Mailbox – Your Name.’
You’ll see the options shown below. You want a ‘New Folder’ You can now name and create a folder based on your need. See the examples shown below.
It is also possible to create sub folders. Perhaps you want to create a general ‘Parent Contacts’ folder, then have a subfolders within it for each school year. Perhaps you would like to create subfolders within your APPR folder for each of the elements that may have emails serving as artifacts.
• To create a ‘subfolder’, right click on the folder that will contain the
‘subfolder(s)’ and repeat the process of creating a new folder.
I’ll create a subfolder (within my APPR Artifacts 2013) for a specific element the APPR rubric.
After you click ‘OK’. You’ll notice that you now have a
‘+’ icon that be clicked to expand the folder and show all sub folders. Clicking the ‘ – ‘ will collapse the folder and hide it’s contents.
‘Element VI.4’ is now a subfolder of ‘APPR Artifacts 2013’
You can now ‘drag and drop’ emails into any of your newly created folders. Just remember, this will move them from your inbox and you will no longer see the email if you are searching your inbox.
2. Using the ‘search/ find’ feature.
Quickly locating emails and attachments is an essential part of navigating Outlook.
• The ‘Find’ feature should be located along the toolbar at the top of Outlook.
If you do not see ‘Find’, right click on the gray area of the toolbar and make sure ‘Standard’ is checked (see below).
• Clicking on the ‘Find’ feature will bring up a search field that allows you to specify what you are searching for and what folders you are searching in.
• There is also the option of running an ‘Advanced Find’. This feature is located in the ‘options’ drop down on the right side of the Find feature.
Using the advance find feature allows you to specify what key words you are searching for, where in the email you expect to find the key words, who the email was from/ sent to and more.
3. Using the ‘Arrange By:’ function.
If you are searching for an email or series of emails, and you know who sent them to you, the ‘Arrange By:’ feature will allow you to quickly access and review all emails sent to you by a specific sender.
• Simply right click on ‘Arranged By’ field and select the ‘From’ option.
You’ll notice that there many additional options as well. More on these later.
Your emails will now be listed by sender. If you previously had an email highlighted, the list will begin around the last name of whomever sent you the highlighted email. For example, if I had previously been viewing an email from Delsignore, Frank and the email is highlighted, my newly arranged list will start at/ around the senders with a last name starting with ‘D’.
If no email had been highlighted, you will start at ‘A’. However: if you single click on an email and being typing the last name that you are looking for, Outlook will ‘jump’ to the emails from the individual that you began typing.
• Arrange by ‘size’ and arrange by ‘attachment’ can also be very helpful.
Arranging by ‘attachment’ will show you all email with attached documents, making it easier to find any documents that were recently sent to you.
Arranging by ‘size’ is an excellent way to clean up a full mailbox.
Notice the image above. I’ve arranged by size and can see that Outlook is set up to show
‘Largest on top’. If you do not see ‘Largest on top’, just single click in that field.
Outlook has arranged my emails and is indicating to me which of them are ‘Huge’, ‘Very Large’, etc. If I find any huge or very large emails that I no longer need, I will right click and delete them.
Once you’ve deleted large emails, be sure to right click the ‘Deleted Items’ folder and select ‘Empty Deleted Items Folder.’
4. Using the ‘Organize’ feature and creating a ‘Signature.’
If you select the ‘Tools’ drop down menu, then the organize feature, you will see that a few potentially helpful options are available.
One such option can be found in ‘Using Colors’.
Within this menu, you have the option to apply specific color codes to messages coming from a particular sender.
You also have the option of applying a color code to messages that are sent specifically to you.
Simply fill in the appropriate fields, then click either
‘Apply Color’ or ‘Turn on’.
• Creating a signature
The option to put a ‘signature’ on your emails is found in the
‘Tools’ drop down menu, then in the ‘Options’ field.
‘Signatures’ can be found within the ‘Mail Format’ tab.
At this point, you’ll need to click on ‘New..’ and create a signature if you don’t already have one, or click ‘Edit’ and modify your existing signature as needed.
6. Archiving old email (and accessing archived mail).
Tired of getting the ‘Your mailbox is almost full’ message? Or, worst yet, not being able to send a message because you’ve exceeded your mailbox size? Frequently archiving your mail will prevent you from seeing these messages.
The option to Archive can be found in the ‘File’ drop down menu.
The archive window features the options shown below.
You can designate which ‘folder’ to archive (most likely your
‘Inbox’ and ‘Sent’ mail are the biggest) simply by clicking on it.
You can also designate what the cutoff date is for items that you’d like to archive.
Remember: You still have access to archived emails!
Finally, you can indicate where to save your ‘Archive File’. I suggest just putting it in your ‘My Documents’ folder.
• To do this, first click on ‘Browse…’ You’ll see the window below.
• Outlook wants to save your archive file in a folder that it has specified, but let’s tell it to save it in ‘My Documents’, because it’ll be easier to remember.
Once you see that you are in ‘My Documents’, click OK. Then click OK in the Archive window to complete the process.
An Important Note (or two):
• You have just manually Archived and told Outlook to put the Archive file in your
‘My Documents’ folder. Outlook will periodically try to ‘AutoArchive’ and a window will pop up asking you to do so. From here on out, you’ll want to click answer NO. ‘AutoArchive’ will try to store your archive file in a different folder (than My Documents) and Outlook will get confused.
• The next time you manually Archive, you may have to designate that Outlook save to ‘My Documents’ again. You’ll just have to browse and select ‘My Documents’ just like you did the first time.
Accessing your archived content:
The ‘All Mail Folders’ section of Outlook should now have a new addition to it…… ‘Archived Folders’.
When you click on the plus sign to expand these folders, you Will see all of your archived content.
7. Turning off the ‘New Mail Desktop Alert’
Occasionally, emails may have subject titles that you do not want flashing across the screen that you have projected in front of your class. Turning off the ‘New Mail Desktop Alert’ will address these.
• To turn off this feature, first go to the ‘Tools’ drop down menu, then choose
‘Options…’ You should see the window below. Click ‘E-mail Options…’
• This will open the window shown below. Next, click ‘Advanced E-mail Options…’
• Finally, UNCHECK ‘Display a New Mail Desktop Alert’
