There is much more to Microsoft Office Outlook than just email, beneath the surface there are lots of useful features to make your day-to-day life easier and more organised. Here are some tips which could save you some frustration.
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Search Folders
These hidden gems help you find similar email across all of your mailbox folders, the three default ones in Outlook 2003 all provide useful functions: Large mail can help you locate the biggest messages and attachments in your mailbox, For Follow Up shows you all flagged mail and Unread Mail will show just that. Very helpful when used along with rules to organise your mail.
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Change the view
You don’t have to stick to the default view, you can change outlook to show information more relevant to you, such as sorting by attachments or filtering mail from specific senders. Simply click on View>Arrange By>Current View>Customise Current View (OL2003) or View>Current View>Customise Current View (OL2007) then organise your folders as you see fit.
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Remove Outlook from the Taskbar
Most of us have Outlook open for the majority of the working day and it shouldn’t really take up space on the taskbar so remove the button by right clicking on the Outlook button in the system tray (next to the clock) and click Hide When Minimised
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Editing attachments
A very common one but many people fall foul of this and could lose hours of work. When you open an attachment from Outlook, it’s saved in a temporary folder which is overwritten should you close and reopen the attachment. When you need to make changes, ensure you save the attachment to your documents so that you can access it in future.
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Recovering Deleted Items
Accidentally deleted all your contacts? When using Exchange you sometimes get more than one chance to bring back deleted items, simply browse to your deleted items folder then click on Tools>Recover Deleted Items. Depending on your settings, you should be able to retrieve mail deleted days or weeks ago.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, there are many more features and tips for using Outlook more effectively, not stopping at just email. Look out for future articles right here or call ISN Solutions on 020 7313 9900 for a free consultation and help on getting IT streamlined in your business.