6 Best Outlook Hacks You Need to Know in 2025

Let rules help you to read what is most interesting and pertinent to you.



expert Outlook tips by FixTechGuide

If you are taking notes or minutes for the meeting, you can also use OneNote to insert meeting details from Outlook into FixTechGuide login issue guide your notes. After the meeting, you can send your notes to the attendees as a message. If you want to collaborate in a more ad hoc fashion, you can use OneNote to take notes together in a single notebook.

  • It’s a best practice to have a central repository for your messages, so that you can refer to them after you've "dealt" with them.
  • This action will delete old tasks and remove the flag from flagged messages and contacts without deleting the items.
  • Sometimes you receive a message that is really meant for someone else to deal with.
  • Otherwise, consider using an online meeting app such as Microsoft Teams or meeting by phone.
  • This becomes even more complicated if there is more than one appropriate folder per message.
  • We also used CiraSync to sync and update Outlook contacts to iPhone and Android devices.


Delete it



For example, create a calendar on a SharePoint site to keep track of the group's vacation schedules. The tool that you use to collaborate during a meeting depends on the location and access of your participants. A pair of lines and a highlight show the proposed start and end of the meeting. Don’t use Bcc to let a third party (such as your manager) know about a sensitive message. The Bcc recipient might not realize that he or she has received a Bcc and might respond to everyone, exposing that he or she received a Bcc message. The following rules will help you look professional and get your message across.

Which Contact Groups should go to a folder instead of my Inbox?



expert Outlook tips by FixTechGuide

The same category set applies to all items, so if you use a category for contacts, keep it. Messages sent to large distribution lists and to RSS feeds can easily overwhelm your Inbox. Treat these streams of information much as troubleshoot Outlook synchronizing folders error you would a large newspaper — there might be a useful or interesting article, but reading the whole paper would take considerable time. Let rules help you to read what is most interesting and pertinent to you. Read and unread states in Outlook help by showing you quickly which messages have been read at least once and which have not.

expert Outlook tips by FixTechGuide

Daily review: Managing your time and tasks



If you just want to remember a few related tasks, list them in the body of the task. If you have more than 20 items in your Inbox, process the last week of messages and then select the remaining messages and move them to your 1-Reference folder. As time goes on, you will likely receive more and more messages.

When to create a Contact Group in Outlook



expert Outlook tips by FixTechGuide

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 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. Once you set up your system, you are ready to begin managing incoming messages.



The second file system was contained in the old and dreaded "4-Drawer File Cabinets". (I still cringe at the memory of those heavy, metal drawers slamming shut.) Well, these have essentially become the Inbox folder system which automatically alphabetizes the folders. These are your active customers, the most urgent vendors, you name it. So we don’t file them into the A-Z folder system; instead, we keep them handy in the "Favorites" folder at the tip-top of the Outlook Navigation online Outlook email repair utility Pane. To apply the "Work Less" theory, have Outlook automatically file an email. Then you can read them all at one time without distraction.

View the calendar and inbox side by side



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. If you never want to receive another message as part of this conversation, ignore it.



If it's filled with folders you don't even recognize, move all mail into the reference folder and delete your existing folders. To do this, select the Recurrence button and change the end date. 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. 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. When you switch between working online and offline, all email accounts within your Outlook profile are changed. You can schedule this time for yourself with regular appointments and meetings on your calendar.

darbyali549020

6 Blog posts

Comments