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About this lesson
Learn how to store your emails in topical folders and use a search folder to gather a category of emails that may be in various folders.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
2016, 2019/365.
Quick reference
Folders and Search Folders
Folders are used to store emails by Topic, and Search Folders will gather emails by a criterion you determine (but won’t move them out of their original folders).
When to use
If your Inbox is getting out of control, start storing your emails into Topical folders. And if you use Flags and Categories, a Search Folder will gather a category of emails that may be in various folders.
Instructions
- Create a Folder in your Inbox:
Right Click the Inbox and choose “New Folder”, or click the Folder Ribbon and choose “New Folder”:
- Control how your folders sort:
- By default, folders will alphabetize A to Z
- Click the FOLDER ribbon, and click-to-turn-off “Show All Folders A to Z”
- Then click and drag the folders to place them in order as you prefer.
- Create a “Search Folder” to gather up the Flagged emails so you won’t have to scan your Inbox for them
- At the bottom of the Folder Pane (aka Navigation Pane) is an option called Search Folders
- Right click and choose “New Search Folder”
- Then choose “Mail Flagged for Follow Up” or “Categorized Mail”
- At the bottom of the Folder Pane (aka Navigation Pane) is an option called Search Folders
- You will see the New folders on the Folder Pane
- It is a good idea to move this folder to your “Favorites” at the top of the Folder Pane, this is so it doesn’t move further down and out of your view.
- Click and drag the folder into the Favorites at the top of the Folder Pane,
- or you can select the button “Show in Favorites”, located on the Folder ribbon (also on the Right Mouse list of a Folder):
- Click and drag the folder into the Favorites at the top of the Folder Pane,
- 00:04 I'd like to show you have to create folders, and search folders,
- 00:07 in Outlook to help you stay organized.
- 00:09 Now, if you'll take a look up on top, you do have a folders ribbon.
- 00:13 And if I do a right-click on my Inbox when I wanna create a new folder,
- 00:16 notice that the icons on the left of that right mouse button, and
- 00:20 that right mouse list happen to match the icons up on the folder list.
- 00:24 Just so, you know, there's two ways to do the same thing.
- 00:26 All right, I'm going to go ahead and create a brand new folder in my inbox,
- 00:30 and I'm gonna call this my travel folder, so
- 00:32 all my emails about travel will be put in to this folder.
- 00:35 When I hit enter,
- 00:36 it automatically alphabetizes itself on the list, don't necessarily want that.
- 00:40 What if, I have 100 folders here?
- 00:43 It's going to land, below my line of sight.
- 00:45 So I want to move this to the top.
- 00:47 Go up on your folder's ribbon, you have a bottom that's turned on,
- 00:50 it's called show all folders.
- 00:52 I'm gonna go ahead and click it, and it will turn itself off, so
- 00:55 the gray color over the top, vanishes.
- 00:57 But now the most current folder I made, landed at the very top of the list.
- 01:02 You can literally click and drag these folders around and
- 01:05 you have full control over alphabetizing these folders, whether you want to or not.
- 01:11 All right, so I like that.
- 01:12 Now, the easiest way to get a email in there is to literally click and
- 01:15 drag an email and move it into that particular folder.
- 01:18 All right, now let's move on to search folders.
- 01:21 Now a search folder is different.
- 01:23 Search, it's going to search for a category color or a flagged email and
- 01:26 gather all of those together into its own folder.
- 01:29 So let's go ahead and take a look at the bottom of my navigation pane.
- 01:32 I have option that says, search folder.
- 01:34 And click my right mouse button and choose new search folder.
- 01:37 We have a scroll box with many actions.
- 01:39 But the second one at the top says, mail flagged for follow up.
- 01:43 This is going to be my flags.
- 01:44 I'll hit, okay.
- 01:45 It creates a brand new folder, again, puts it at the bottom of my notification pane,
- 01:50 which may very well, be out of my line of sight.
- 01:52 These are pretty important.
- 01:54 I don't want my follow ups to go away from my view.
- 01:56 So I'm going to put those up in my Inbox in my Favorites, that's right,
- 02:00 up in my Favorites, two ways to do that.
- 02:02 I have an option, right up here, on my ribbon that says, Show in Favorites.
- 02:06 I have a right mouse button with the option Show in Favorites.
- 02:10 Or, I can literally click and drag the folder and put it up in my favorites, and
- 02:14 there it is.
- 02:15 Keeps it at the top of my navigation pane in view, all the time.
- 02:18 Now, if I go back to my inbox, I can see that I have three red flags marked,
- 02:24 and if I want to, say I'm done with one of these, I can right click a flag and
- 02:28 tell it Mark as Complete.
- 02:30 And I get a lovely little check mark, who doesn't like a check mark on a to do list?
- 02:34 And notice my follow-up folder just went to two.
- 02:37 So, that's great.
- 02:38 Now, let's create another one for the colors.
- 02:40 Right-click on my search folder, choose new search folder.
- 02:44 This time, I'm gonna scroll down and find categorized mail.
- 02:47 Which category, I'm gonna make this my orange category.
- 02:51 Hit, okay.
- 02:52 And okay, and
- 02:53 now I have a folder with just anything that was marked with my orange category.
- 02:58 Now, I wanna move that to my favorites.
- 03:00 I'm gonna just click and drag and move it up manually.
- 03:03 And there you have it.
- 03:04 I've got my inbox with all my emails in them, few scattered colors,
- 03:09 few scattered flags, but right up here on the left are my favorites.
- 03:12 There's all my follow-ups.
- 03:13 There's all my orange category.
- 03:15 That is how you stay organized and keep on moving with your workload.
- 03:19 All right, I hope that helps you.
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