Tip #2968 - Bring Order to Chaos
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Bring
Order to Chaos
So, you've got a ton
of e-mail messages in MS Outlook. Maybe in your Inbox or possibly in some
other folder you use to save your important messages.
Either way, it's getting
pretty crowded and chaotic in there.
You've got "this"
here, "that" there and it's getting pretty difficult to keep
it all straight.
You could use a sorting
method, but wouldn't you like something that does a little more?
Maybe a way that would
allow you to divide messages into subgroups and then use the sort method
to organize within each group?
You know, maybe you
could group them by sender and then sort the groups by date?
Or put them into subgroups
by subject, then have them sorted by sender or... Well, just about any
combination you may require will work.
Ready to learn how?
Yeah, I thought so.
What you're looking
for is Outlook's Group By Box option.
It can be easily accessed
via a button that looks like this:
In Outlook
97, I found this button on the far right of
the Standard toolbar and in the newer versions
of Outlook, I located it on the Advanced toolbar.
(You can use the View menu, Toolbars submenu
to display a toolbar if necessary).
At any rate, once
you locate the button, click it.
Immediately, you should
see this new space above your listing of messages.
Notice the text that
is lightly displayed in that empty space?
Yep, that's right.
It says to "Drag
a column header here to group by that column."
And that's exactly
what you do.
If you want to group
your messages by sender, click, hold and drag the "From" column
header into that space and then release your mouse button.
If you need to sort
by date, just drag the "Subject" column header into the new
space.
Whatever your highest
priority in group criteria should be the column heading you move.
Now take a look at
the messages. See how they're no longer individually listed?
This was a grouping
done by subject.
See the little plus
sign to the left of each entry?
Click there to expand
the group and see all the messages contained within.
Click the minus sign
(what the plus sign became once you opened the group) to close the group.
If you change your
mind about the grouping, simply drag the column header back into its proper
location and put something different there or leave it blank if you want
no grouping at all.
To remove that space
at the top and to keep you from accidentally changing the group type,
simply click the Group By Box button again.
Poof!
The field is neatly
"put away" while still maintaining your grouping.
Oh yeah, one more
thing. I found that as I dropped new e-mails into a mailbox set up this
way, the messages were automatically placed into the correct group based
on the settings for that mailbox. No resorting necessary.
Now you've really
put order to your e-mail chaos!
~ April
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