The first step to bringing a gmail-style workflow to Outlook is setting
up conversation views. These allow you to see all emails in a
conversation, sent and received, no matter whom the message was from or
what folder you moved it to. It’s especially useful in long
conversations that split off into separate discussions from multiple
recipients. One click expands a message to show the rest of the
conversation, and each email includes the folder it currently calls
home:
Next, set up an archive folder. Call it whatever you like: this is where you’ll banish emails after they’ve arrived to your inbox, you’ve made eye contact, and decided what to do with it.
In other words, your Inbox lives up to its name and only holds items you still need to take action upon.I’ve setup a Quick Step button to mark a message as read and move it to the Archive folder with one click. To set up a Quick Step, simply right-click any message, point to Quick Steps and use the New option near the bottom. Here’s my archive button’s setup:
Finally, the All Mail folder.
While the conversation view in step 1 allows you to see all items of a single conversation, this last step allows you to view a chronological list of every conversation, regardless of the folder, er.. label, it’s filed under.
For Outlook, this will be implemented as a Search Folder. Search folders look and feel like a normal folder, but the contents inside them are live search results.
So to view our All mail folder, we’ll setup a search folder that displays content from all other folders. In the navigation pane, right-click Search Folders, choose New, then scroll to the bottom to create a custom search folder.
Click Choose to give it a name (“All Mail” or “Everything”) then browse to select the folders it should display results from. I chose everything except my sent folder (sent messages are already shown in conversation view, so including it is not necessary).
This new all mail Search Folder is also a great place to begin a search: it will cover all your bases at once, instead of searching in several places to find that one email you lost.
Next, set up an archive folder. Call it whatever you like: this is where you’ll banish emails after they’ve arrived to your inbox, you’ve made eye contact, and decided what to do with it.
In other words, your Inbox lives up to its name and only holds items you still need to take action upon.I’ve setup a Quick Step button to mark a message as read and move it to the Archive folder with one click. To set up a Quick Step, simply right-click any message, point to Quick Steps and use the New option near the bottom. Here’s my archive button’s setup:
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| My Archive button’s settings. I have an identical Quick Step that also marks a message as “done” with a checkmark. I use it on to-do or assigned tasks so I can quickly find completed chores later when inevitably asked to document their completion. |
Finally, the All Mail folder.
While the conversation view in step 1 allows you to see all items of a single conversation, this last step allows you to view a chronological list of every conversation, regardless of the folder, er.. label, it’s filed under.
For Outlook, this will be implemented as a Search Folder. Search folders look and feel like a normal folder, but the contents inside them are live search results.
So to view our All mail folder, we’ll setup a search folder that displays content from all other folders. In the navigation pane, right-click Search Folders, choose New, then scroll to the bottom to create a custom search folder.
Click Choose to give it a name (“All Mail” or “Everything”) then browse to select the folders it should display results from. I chose everything except my sent folder (sent messages are already shown in conversation view, so including it is not necessary).
 |
| Search Folders behave just like normal folders, but their contents are dynamic. Also shown, the Unread Mail search folder, which always gives a consolidated view of all unread items. |
This new all mail Search Folder is also a great place to begin a search: it will cover all your bases at once, instead of searching in several places to find that one email you lost.
That’s
it for the basics. You can further the gmail paradigm by setting up
color-coded Categories that are analogous to gmail labels, and even
apply them with incoming email rules to effectively pre-label your email
without dumping them into dozens of folders, never to be seen again.