I’m heading up a team of different functions like marketing, product development, Q&S and need to keep the overview of a lot of different topics and projects. Thank you for the archiving and categorisation tip. I reorganised my entire mailbox today. The first time in years I have less than 50 mails inbox without having the feeling I miss something. Big thank you!!
Extraordinary advice! I appreciate your time creating this video. Completely identified with the statement "Outlook is not a task manager." The templates are a huge time saver. Thank you for this video.
You are a lifesaver, thank you. I am just changing from apple systems to microsoft office - reluctantly. But slowly I can see the light and the possibilities here for effective and time saving work. Thank you so much
I have implemented this in my workflow. - NOT to use the e-mail as my task list. and not to constantly trying to remember which folder I filed the email in is GREAT. I wish it was just a little bit more easy to change date or other «properties» of tasks directly from outlook, since it is so easy to create a task, and change the tittle of the task from Outlook. But as I see other people says here: A VERY usefull video! Thx!
Outlook Templates!!! OMG this is the single best feature I've seen in Outlook for a long time. I've been cutting and pasting for years. It's so intriguing, I might have to ignore the New Outlook flaws keeping me from switching, just to use this feature. There are lots of other great tips in this video as well. Thank you. P.S. - My email management, with its many gigabytes of stored emails in hundreds of folders, would be an ideal example of what not to do - although it works well for my transactional business. Your videos encourage me to do better!
Excellent video. Thank you for compiling them. Its always confusing for me. I do categorize a lot and want to find another way. Few queries on your suggestions. 1. Whats the point of Archiving? Why not just categorize. We are anyway going to use search for the emails. What's the drive to have a clean inbox? 2. How is categories different from folder structure?
Hi new subber 🎉my favourite productivity tip is learn great productivity tips from people that share them with me - and love that they explain how and why they do it - unlike the ones at work when they just say you should do it like this 😂
Hey Jonathan, What a great video, thank you. I think the most useful is the No.1 Archive, trouble is now I need the discipline to use it and then build on to it with the next 11!
Great Tipps for mastering outlook in an much better way thnx Jonathan According to TODO here is an additional Tip u ave also the possibility to tag ur tasks if u name an task in todo like : clean up ur #room , then u can search for the tag room in the todo search bar. best regards
Great video and very helpful! Also love your style! Thank you so much Jonathan! Quick question... I'm on a Mac and believe the interface looks a bit different on here. It doesn't look like you were using a Mac... would you say the tips/steps are fairly similar or do I need to also be watching people who are using a Mac? Thank you so much!
Fantastic tips! The only one I would add would be using search parameters in the Outlook Search box, just typing from:X, and/or subject:Y, and/or body:Z makes finding email a whole lot easier. You can use quotes to find an exact phrase. To find email you know you received between two dates received:>05/15/2024 AND received:
Many thanks for the tips. I will try them out. Categorizing and archiving emails will definitely help me, but what do you do when a project XX is completed? Do you delete it from your favourites? Do you rename that category? Cheers!
You can remove the category from all emails. The emails will still be in your archive folder. You can then remove the category altogether or just from favourites.
This was such a great video! Thank you so much!!! I am in the process of eliminating my million subfolders and only using archive. However, when I use categorize and then archive, they all end up in the archive folder and not nicely separated like your example shows. ie, the categories on the left w/the colored tags. I guess a work around would be to put the categories as subfolders under archive and manually move them to there?
Thanks Jonathan love the video and Im trying to change / need to change and adapt some of your ideas. Any thoughts on how to tirage using these techniques when on mobile. Can filter or add categories?
Great video! Thanks for sharing. I have a question about the "Follow Up" category. After you create a task for an email in that category, do you remove the Follow Up tag from the email? It seems like it could get confusing knowing which emails already have tasks and which still need them. I'm thinking of creating tasks directly from my inbox when I process emails without using the Follow Up tag. Do you see any potential issues with this approach? Thanks!
Useful ideas and I am a big fan of the GTD Methods, however, I receive a few hundred emails a day from lots of clients, internal product threads and over 80 projects. I often need to look up emails from specific clients or projects and I don't think the categories strategy works for this - can you please comment or suggest a way to make this fit into your process?
@@bearded365guy Already apply outlook Rules and colours (categories) on Calendar items, plan mails into slots in calendar etc. the issue is the volume of emails across so many threads, if you did 4-5 projects and a few clients then your systems would be no issue. However, with volume, the search becomes just as hard to use. not the ":" function in the search is good. Any ideas on large volume and many projects system would be useful I have not found a good one yet
Thank you. This is a really helpful and useful video. One question I have is, what of these features are only available to business subscriptions and what are available to personal subscriptions as I believe these differ? Do you know?
That’s a very good question and I don’t honestly know the answer because I only work with business. My bet is that Outlook is the same with Personal and Business, but someone might correct me!
@@bearded365guy I believe that the personal subscriptions do not get the same functionality but I can't find anywhere that tells me the differences. I believe categories will not be in the personal subscriptions but I am not sure about the rest.
Thank you Jonathan for the great videos that you made - I feel they will change my working life completely! P.S. I have got mates who sound just like you - from Manchester? Bolton? 😂
I've been trying to do the same thing, but couldn't find a solution yet. Mails from shared mailboxes don't show up under the categories. Looking forward to an answer too, thanks.
Checked with Microsoft Support - it's currently not on the roadmap to add categories as favorites to shared mailboxes Which then poses the question whether this is a good path to go down for now ...
Question: If I switch to categorizing and archiving emails as you suggest and creating tasks from emails that I need to act on, what would one use the flag email option for?
Hi Jonathan, I've been using your tips along with GTG and it's been fantastic, inbox zero is a real thing now, not just an illusion. So thank you! But I wanted to bring this up because I'm having an enormous hard time with following these tips using the Outlook app on my Android, maybe is not a thing on the iPhone. Here's my issue... I have no way to categorize an email in the app... I can flag, I can archive, but I can add a category to it.... Any ideas?
Yes, that’s an issue when you’re out and about on the smartphones. Can I tell you what I do? I don’t have email on my phone anymore…. But realise that isn’t helpful for everyone. Use your phone to read email if needed, but don’t use it for “email processing”.
Great tips. I've implemented everything that I had not already done. One problem. I have two Microsoft 365 email accounts in New Outlook. I've set up the categories in the main one, but I can't see an easy way to copy the categories to the other. Is there a way to do that?
Hello, I hope everything is well. I have a question about the new Outlook app. Is there any way to back up emails, like creating PST or OST files? Thank you for your help!
Question: Is there a way to set up an automatic reply or forward once you have color categorized an email.? For example, if I categorize an email BLUE it will automatically forward to a specific email - can we do this?
I'm sorry Jonathan, what is the difference of doing it your way on categorizing emails and then archiving them, vs creating tons of folders for them? It appears to be the same thing in a different way.
Thanks! I have given a second chance to new Outlook thanks to your videos. I used rules in old Outlook to categorize my emails (per project), 2 rules were needed: one for inbox and other one for sent emails. In new Outlook I could only create one rule so it does not work in the sent emails folder. Do you know how to fix it?
Thanks for saying it. Outlook is not a Task Manager. Nor is it File Storage, just like Email files get archived in a folder somewhere so they can be used without having to open Outlook.
These tips are helpful. I tried using categories but they don't work in Outlook App (mobile). I just noticed that you are now able to categorize email but the category do not show up in my favorites section.
If you categorize an email and use view by conversation threads, the whole conversation gets categorized, new emails in the conversation too. This makes the procedure useless, since you loose track of the email that corresponds to the specific action.
If you think archiving into a single folder and/or categorizing into a flat list of categories is better than multi level folders... you must not get many types of emails. Simple enough for my with emails but my personal email has far more folders
When it comes to projects what’s the advantage of categorizing + archiving vs. moving to a folder? For Waiting For and Next Action labelling it makes sense, but I don’t see any advantage of using categories for projects… 🤔
For me, every email is in the same folder - Archive. I use categories to sort them. You can use folders, but I’ve seen so many people who have far too many folders - and they end up not knowing which folder an email is in.
@@bearded365guy Fair, I just don't see a material difference between sorting emails with categories or with folders. The end result is still a bunch of emails grouped together, regardless of what mechanism has done it. Not trying to be argumentative by the way, just genuinely trying to see what I'm missing! And also, thanks for this channel, fantastic content 🙏🏻😊
Problem with categories is that they do not show up on your moble Outlook app, therefore you lose everything you have sorted on your phone. Sub folders do show on the mobile app
You really need to elaborate on that "Archive & Categorize" more, because making folders and subfolders is essentially just a folder-based method of categorizing your e-mails. It makes no sense that you criticize folders & subfolders so harshly, only then to use essentially the same system, but with a different name slapped onto it (and it being tag-based).
Agreed! Proponents of metadata tagging vs a hierarchical folder structure often ask "how do you know ow which folder you put something?" but then fail to answer "how do you know which tag you used?". It's worse when you have to look at content someone else filed, at least with a hierarchical structure you have a hope of working it out. Someone else's metadata tagging is tantamount to discovering a cupboard they've just stuffed every document into with arbitrary labels on every one! Only plus is you can use multiple tags on an item with metadata. But that's what shortcuts were for in the good old folder system.
Here’s a challenge for you: I use categories and a single folder to file everything, but it drives me NUTS that I also have to process my sent email. How do I categorise my outgoing mail and save it automatically to my Archive with the category label still present? I know using conversations will pull all threads together, but I want an empty sent box and I want to see anything I send where I’m expecting a reply, or belongs to a specific project etc in the appropriate category search. I put all my processed email into a folder called “All processed Mail” (inventive, hey?) after I categorise them and use the search folders to list all categories. I much prefer categories to folders as email can be in one or more category but only in one folder. Weirdly, it has never even occurred to me to use the Archive. Will be amending that tomorrow morning 😂.
I understand. So you’re sending an email to someone and then you want to categorise that as “Waiting for reply”. You don’t want that email in your sent items? It could live in your sent items with a category? Or, manually, could go into sent item and move it to archive…. Or you could create an Outlook rule to move items into archive. I personally would use option 1 and keep my sent in my sent, with just a category applied!
@@bearded365guy Thanks for the reply. I’d have to steel myself to keep a full sent folder But, if the categories don’t get stripped, I suppose I could just bulk move everything to Archive periodically. Have subbed 😊. I did come across a pain in the wotsit using the online version - it appears I can add only one category to a message. Such a shame as it looks good but I’ll probably have to stick to the desktop app. Does mean I can set up some new quick steps to apply the categories and move to archive, though. Swings and roundabouts!
I cc myself and have a rule that sends it to a folder. After watching this video it now categorises it for me instead. Still can’t use new outlook. To many things don’t work for me. I’m using search folders in old outlook and achieving the same results. Doesn’t seem to be the same functionality for a shared inbox though ?
On my work desktop, I've got a very specific setup on Outlook Desktop (classic for lack of a better word). My work laptop I have turned on the NEW Outlook and while I like the modern look and a few of the features like Snooze etc mentioned here, the Rules I have defined on my desktop Outlook are pretty extensive - I have about 70 of them. Both the NEW Outlook I'm using on the laptop, as well as Outlook on the Web do not even SHOW a Rules menu option under Outlook settings. Nothing on the web when I search for this seems to point to a solution. I'm also the Global Admin of our company's 365 account, and I have not been able to get a single user that can pull up OWA and see the rules option show - it is simply missing. What direction would you suggest we go in - other than stick w/Outlook "classic" on the desktop?
I would archive more, replacing my current folder structure, if the index function on outlook wasn't absolute crap and the search function would work better. Current search up to 12 months, acceptable results, over 12 months worth of data..... useless...
Hi, great video thanks. I have an issue in my Outlook app, I can't see the categories under my inbox on the left side, just like you did in minute 5:40 can you please advise?
Thank you for your video. When l do as you say in the categories l have done everything you said but when l click on the archive to put them into my categories they do not go over they stay in the archive, if you what l mean. Can you help.
Sorry, what I meant was that the current version of the iPad/iPhone app doesn’t give you the ability to search by categories in the same way you can with the web version.
Hi John, Thank for your tips, that help me a lot, but I have a issue on outlook 2021; when I select an email, it takes 2/3 min to download pics in that. do you know what problem come from? In Outlook (new) from windows 11 no issue about this Have nice day Sergio
I’m glad they have the email templates feature, but it seems limited to the individual user. It’s not helpful for those of us who need to share lots of templates across a department, for example. (Unless I’m missing something?)
You can type an email outs and then click file and save as, then save the file as an .oft file and place it into a share folder for your department or company and everyone and then click the file and it will open a new template for who every clicks on the file 👍🏻
@@peterstalworth Much appreciated. Yes, that's how we handle it now. It's a bit clunky as people have to go somewhere besides Outlook to get their templates. I was hoping for a better solution in the future, especially since the new outlook simply wouldn't open OFT files until recently. I guess we can keep doing what we're doing as long as they don't deprecate the file type.
I would really like to be able to archive into favourites, but in my outlook on both web app or desktop the favourites do no show up underneath the archive header in the navigation bar. It makes it really hard to look for what is in your to-do archive category. So I think I will just have to use folders until I have access to that feature. (i have folder view turned on).
@@bearded365guy I switched from classic desktop to the webs app after watching your videos (onPC). Everything is the same apart from not being able to see the favourited folders in my archive. I have searched around on forums and others have this issue as well. I cannot search by category in the web version, but can do that in the desk top app. So am sort of using both!
Great video - but why do my sent emails show up in the category I have replied to? I have a rule already set that all sent emails go to the deleted box - any advice would be appreciated
Instead of categorizing emails, why not create a To-Do list with categories like "Follow-Up," "Waiting For," and "Next Action"? You can easily drag and drop emails into the appropriate list. Plus, when someone replies to an email, you can quickly clear the task from your To-Do list instead of going back to the "Follow-Up" category to remove the flagged message. There’s also a direct link to the email in the To-Do list if you need it. Am I missing something? Thanks for the video, and I’m interested in the Office 365 course-could you provide more information?
Having been in a team managing a shared inbox in old outlook. we had categories for status, and connected to dynamics, and many folders. How would you deal with that?
Hi there, Please could someone help with this issue? I have ‘show as conversations on’ I have a folder that is “waiting on response” which I move emails from my mail inbox to there. When the person does reply to my email it comes into my main inbox which is good, but there previous email is still in my “waiting on response” folder. I essentially want them replying to take the whole conversation out of that folder, and for the email to remain as just one email conversation! I hope this makes sense, please let me know if anyone can help? Thanks
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I’m heading up a team of different functions like marketing, product development, Q&S and need to keep the overview of a lot of different topics and projects. Thank you for the archiving and categorisation tip. I reorganised my entire mailbox today. The first time in years I have less than 50 mails inbox without having the feeling I miss something. Big thank you!!
Love it!
i was a Microsoft Support Engineer. Email templates are a must have. Highly under rated tip!
wow thank you for the heart. Love your content and always enthusiastic and positive. Most important always objective and provide cons when valid.
This is probably the most useful outlook video I’ve ever watched. Thank you for your time creating it!
Extraordinary advice! I appreciate your time creating this video. Completely identified with the statement "Outlook is not a task manager." The templates are a huge time saver. Thank you for this video.
The archive and categorization have blown my mind! I love the GTD method but could never figure out how to make it work well with Outlook. THANK YOU!
You are a lifesaver, thank you. I am just changing from apple systems to microsoft office - reluctantly. But slowly I can see the light and the possibilities here for effective and time saving work. Thank you so much
I have implemented this in my workflow. - NOT to use the e-mail as my task list. and not to constantly trying to remember which folder I filed the email in is GREAT.
I wish it was just a little bit more easy to change date or other «properties» of tasks directly from outlook, since it is so easy to create a task, and change the tittle of the task from Outlook.
But as I see other people says here: A VERY usefull video! Thx!
Outlook Templates!!! OMG this is the single best feature I've seen in Outlook for a long time. I've been cutting and pasting for years. It's so intriguing, I might have to ignore the New Outlook flaws keeping me from switching, just to use this feature. There are lots of other great tips in this video as well. Thank you. P.S. - My email management, with its many gigabytes of stored emails in hundreds of folders, would be an ideal example of what not to do - although it works well for my transactional business. Your videos encourage me to do better!
Wow, this is one of the best videos I have ever watched on TH-cam.
I train employees on time management skills, this is a great resources! Thank you for putting the time & effort into this!
Excellent video. Thank you for compiling them. Its always confusing for me. I do categorize a lot and want to find another way.
Few queries on your suggestions.
1. Whats the point of Archiving? Why not just categorize. We are anyway going to use search for the emails. What's the drive to have a clean inbox?
2. How is categories different from folder structure?
Hi new subber 🎉my favourite productivity tip is learn great productivity tips from people that share them with me - and love that they explain how and why they do it - unlike the ones at work when they just say you should do it like this 😂
Hey Jonathan, What a great video, thank you. I think the most useful is the No.1 Archive, trouble is now I need the discipline to use it and then build on to it with the next 11!
That archive tip is really good, I started to use it today, and I made it through my morning emails quickly.
Watched your video for the first time ever and I am your new subscriber. Keep creating.
Great Tipps for mastering outlook in an much better way thnx Jonathan
According to TODO here is an additional Tip
u ave also the possibility to tag ur tasks if u name an task in todo like : clean up ur #room , then u can search for the tag room in the todo search bar.
best regards
Great video and very helpful! Also love your style! Thank you so much Jonathan! Quick question... I'm on a Mac and believe the interface looks a bit different on here. It doesn't look like you were using a Mac... would you say the tips/steps are fairly similar or do I need to also be watching people who are using a Mac? Thank you so much!
Great video. Outlook was launched in 1990 and still the best email app ever invented.
Fantastic tips! The only one I would add would be using search parameters in the Outlook Search box, just typing from:X, and/or subject:Y, and/or body:Z makes finding email a whole lot easier. You can use quotes to find an exact phrase. To find email you know you received between two dates received:>05/15/2024 AND received:
Thanks for supporting my channel David.
The best email management video I've seen. Had to drop a like and subscribe. Looking forward to watching your other videos
Thank you. 🙏
Quality information and delivery Johnathon, really clear thanks for sharing. I’m on it Monday.
Many thanks for the tips. I will try them out.
Categorizing and archiving emails will definitely help me, but what do you do when a project XX is completed? Do you delete it from your favourites? Do you rename that category?
Cheers!
You can remove the category from all emails. The emails will still be in your archive folder. You can then remove the category altogether or just from favourites.
Well done Jonathan, I can start using some of these techniques today! Here's to a zero inbox!
Good luck!
@@bearded365guy It was a snap! It took a while because bad e-mail hygene is like dirty dishes....the mess piles up quick!
The combination of archive and categorize is excellent, thank you, Jonathan.
made me get out of bed, 12.30am.. power up my work laptop and have a crack.. some great trips / hacks.. thanks
Great, but the greatest hack is to sleep!
This was such a great video! Thank you so much!!! I am in the process of eliminating my million subfolders and only using archive. However, when I use categorize and then archive, they all end up in the archive folder and not nicely separated like your example shows. ie, the categories on the left w/the colored tags. I guess a work around would be to put the categories as subfolders under archive and manually move them to there?
@@sherrillstrassburg9157 Are you using Classic Outlook or the new one?
@@bearded365guy Ohhhh....I was using old Outlook! I turned on new and it is working just like yours! Yay!!! Thank you so much!
Deserves a follow like to see more. Love that co-pilot will have try it out.
Watched multiple videos, and this is the one! Thanks. P.S.: funny too!
In addition to the content which is always great, thanks for the cheerful delivery. Packaging makes a difference ! 😊
Some great tips especially getting rid of folders. Categorising and archiving with the advanced search function are my favs. Thank you,
You are going to save me a ton of time and head fog! Thanks for these great tips.
Thanks Jonathan love the video and Im trying to change / need to change and adapt some of your ideas. Any thoughts on how to tirage using these techniques when on mobile. Can filter or add categories?
Another thing that I have done now…. Which isn’t for everyone. I don’t have any email on my phone and I only use my laptop (Windows) to process email.
I use categorize but archive only when i'm done with the e-mail (no more action needed)
Works great
Great video! Thanks for sharing. I have a question about the "Follow Up" category. After you create a task for an email in that category, do you remove the Follow Up tag from the email? It seems like it could get confusing knowing which emails already have tasks and which still need them. I'm thinking of creating tasks directly from my inbox when I process emails without using the Follow Up tag. Do you see any potential issues with this approach? Thanks!
Your option works too. Removing the follow up category for me happens during my email processing. So I am looking at it twice per day.
@@bearded365guy That makes sense. Thanks again.
OMG! I Love You! I can't wait to go to work tomorrow.😊
Useful ideas and I am a big fan of the GTD Methods, however, I receive a few hundred emails a day from lots of clients, internal product threads and over 80 projects. I often need to look up emails from specific clients or projects and I don't think the categories strategy works for this - can you please comment or suggest a way to make this fit into your process?
You don’t think a mix of categories and search would work?
@@bearded365guy Already apply outlook Rules and colours (categories) on Calendar items, plan mails into slots in calendar etc. the issue is the volume of emails across so many threads, if you did 4-5 projects and a few clients then your systems would be no issue. However, with volume, the search becomes just as hard to use. not the ":" function in the search is good. Any ideas on large volume and many projects system would be useful I have not found a good one yet
Thank you. This is a really helpful and useful video. One question I have is, what of these features are only available to business subscriptions and what are available to personal subscriptions as I believe these differ? Do you know?
That’s a very good question and I don’t honestly know the answer because I only work with business. My bet is that Outlook is the same with Personal and Business, but someone might correct me!
@@bearded365guy I believe that the personal subscriptions do not get the same functionality but I can't find anywhere that tells me the differences. I believe categories will not be in the personal subscriptions but I am not sure about the rest.
Copilot also uses a HUGE amount of datacenter energy/water.
Thank you Jonathan for the great videos that you made - I feel they will change my working life completely! P.S. I have got mates who sound just like you - from Manchester? Bolton? 😂
😂 Nearby. I am a Yorkshire lad.
Amazing Video
Awesome video!
Thank you! and do you know how this works for shared email? because when I tried it only works on my personal one. Appreciate your answer!
I've been trying to do the same thing, but couldn't find a solution yet. Mails from shared mailboxes don't show up under the categories. Looking forward to an answer too, thanks.
Checked with Microsoft Support - it's currently not on the roadmap to add categories as favorites to shared mailboxes
Which then poses the question whether this is a good path to go down for now ...
Es un excelente video pero hay algunas configuraciones que se hacen distinto en la app de Outlook que en Owa.
Great information - all relevant, quick and easy - and will be helpful. Thanks!
1st time I have ever seen a TH-cam video that ACTUALLY IS VERY HELPFUL 🎉
Thanks Jonathan for the great tips, do you have these for Mac?
@@adnankordab I’ll be making more Macs videos very soon.
Question: If I switch to categorizing and archiving emails as you suggest and creating tasks from emails that I need to act on, what would one use the flag email option for?
@@jenniferpizzirusso213 you wouldn’t. I think email flags are old news.
Hi Jonathan, I've been using your tips along with GTG and it's been fantastic, inbox zero is a real thing now, not just an illusion. So thank you!
But I wanted to bring this up because I'm having an enormous hard time with following these tips using the Outlook app on my Android, maybe is not a thing on the iPhone. Here's my issue... I have no way to categorize an email in the app... I can flag, I can archive, but I can add a category to it.... Any ideas?
Yes, that’s an issue when you’re out and about on the smartphones. Can I tell you what I do? I don’t have email on my phone anymore…. But realise that isn’t helpful for everyone. Use your phone to read email if needed, but don’t use it for “email processing”.
Great tips. I got rid of my folder a decade ago and never looked back.
Hi Jonathan. Loved the video, however the new outlook does NOT have the category feature in the advanced search!
Great tips. I've implemented everything that I had not already done. One problem. I have two Microsoft 365 email accounts in New Outlook. I've set up the categories in the main one, but I can't see an easy way to copy the categories to the other. Is there a way to do that?
Might be a manual job….
Thanks for the tips 🌟
Especially liked the use of categories - already use in calendar but didn't think to use in
I like all the tips that you provided, thank you Jonathan.
Good video 👍 Category option is not available in advanced filter in web option and recent new outlook :(
Hello,
I hope everything is well. I have a question about the new Outlook app. Is there any way to back up emails, like creating PST or OST files?
Thank you for your help!
Thanks, very informative. All tips are new to me
Question: Is there a way to set up an automatic reply or forward once you have color categorized an email.? For example, if I categorize an email BLUE it will automatically forward to a specific email - can we do this?
Yes, with Quick Steps!
Only problem I found when I put email in categories, is when I use the outlook app on my iPhone, doesnt seem to have the ability to show categories..?
The same on iPad
You’ve just changed my life 😂
Thank you fo this very useful video. It’s not possible to have categories folders in favorities ares , also in outlook desktop version?
I'm sorry Jonathan, what is the difference of doing it your way on categorizing emails and then archiving them, vs creating tons of folders for them? It appears to be the same thing in a different way.
You will know which you have read and which you have not, the inbox will become a place of unread e-mails
Subscribed after seeing this video thank you!
Thanks! I have given a second chance to new Outlook thanks to your videos. I used rules in old Outlook to categorize my emails (per project), 2 rules were needed: one for inbox and other one for sent emails. In new Outlook I could only create one rule so it does not work in the sent emails folder. Do you know how to fix it?
Thanks for saying it. Outlook is not a Task Manager. Nor is it File Storage, just like Email files get archived in a folder somewhere so they can be used without having to open Outlook.
These tips are helpful. I tried using categories but they don't work in Outlook App (mobile). I just noticed that you are now able to categorize email but the category do not show up in my favorites section.
If you categorize an email and use view by conversation threads, the whole conversation gets categorized, new emails in the conversation too. This makes the procedure useless, since you loose track of the email that corresponds to the specific action.
If you think archiving into a single folder and/or categorizing into a flat list of categories is better than multi level folders... you must not get many types of emails. Simple enough for my with emails but my personal email has far more folders
Very useful, I hope more than video from you will be lauched.💓💓
Control+Shift+V = move to folder… you can start typing the folder’s name and it will search+find the right folder… enter to sort.
Thank you very much!
Do you know how to filter by two categorizes (labels)? Or in the search section, to include the label in the filters
When it comes to projects what’s the advantage of categorizing + archiving vs. moving to a folder? For Waiting For and Next Action labelling it makes sense, but I don’t see any advantage of using categories for projects… 🤔
For me, every email is in the same folder - Archive. I use categories to sort them. You can use folders, but I’ve seen so many people who have far too many folders - and they end up not knowing which folder an email is in.
@@bearded365guy Fair, I just don't see a material difference between sorting emails with categories or with folders. The end result is still a bunch of emails grouped together, regardless of what mechanism has done it. Not trying to be argumentative by the way, just genuinely trying to see what I'm missing! And also, thanks for this channel, fantastic content 🙏🏻😊
So my work deletes email after 90 days (inbox and archive). What I have found is this method is great for
How long do you schedule your two daily email processing windows for?
For as long as it takes! The more you get into the swing, the less it takes. Sometimes it’s 30 mins, sometimes it’s 5 mins.
please continue , you're the best.
There's also a checkbox on the signature page to "add a link to my bookings page"
Problem with categories is that they do not show up on your moble Outlook app, therefore you lose everything you have sorted on your phone. Sub folders do show on the mobile app
Yes, that’s true. Although I don’t use Outlook on my phone anymore…. Wasted too much time replying to emails when I didn’t need to.
Yes you can, look for the small arrow
You really need to elaborate on that "Archive & Categorize" more, because making folders and subfolders is essentially just a folder-based method of categorizing your e-mails. It makes no sense that you criticize folders & subfolders so harshly, only then to use essentially the same system, but with a different name slapped onto it (and it being tag-based).
Agreed! Proponents of metadata tagging vs a hierarchical folder structure often ask "how do you know ow which folder you put something?" but then fail to answer "how do you know which tag you used?". It's worse when you have to look at content someone else filed, at least with a hierarchical structure you have a hope of working it out. Someone else's metadata tagging is tantamount to discovering a cupboard they've just stuffed every document into with arbitrary labels on every one! Only plus is you can use multiple tags on an item with metadata. But that's what shortcuts were for in the good old folder system.
Like archiving by categories feature, though looks like it only works with web version not desktop version.
You can still categorise and archive with old version of Outlook - you can favourite the categories in the old version though.
@@bearded365guy Archiving by categories is a great feature, but it is a no go for me until they add categories to Outlook mobile
Here’s a challenge for you: I use categories and a single folder to file everything, but it drives me NUTS that I also have to process my sent email. How do I categorise my outgoing mail and save it automatically to my Archive with the category label still present? I know using conversations will pull all threads together, but I want an empty sent box and I want to see anything I send where I’m expecting a reply, or belongs to a specific project etc in the appropriate category search. I put all my processed email into a folder called “All processed Mail” (inventive, hey?) after I categorise them and use the search folders to list all categories. I much prefer categories to folders as email can be in one or more category but only in one folder. Weirdly, it has never even occurred to me to use the Archive. Will be amending that tomorrow morning 😂.
I understand. So you’re sending an email to someone and then you want to categorise that as “Waiting for reply”. You don’t want that email in your sent items? It could live in your sent items with a category? Or, manually, could go into sent item and move it to archive…. Or you could create an Outlook rule to move items into archive. I personally would use option 1 and keep my sent in my sent, with just a category applied!
@@bearded365guy Thanks for the reply. I’d have to steel myself to keep a full sent folder But, if the categories don’t get stripped, I suppose I could just bulk move everything to Archive periodically. Have subbed 😊. I did come across a pain in the wotsit using the online version - it appears I can add only one category to a message. Such a shame as it looks good but I’ll probably have to stick to the desktop app. Does mean I can set up some new quick steps to apply the categories and move to archive, though. Swings and roundabouts!
I cc myself and have a rule that sends it to a folder. After watching this video it now categorises it for me instead. Still can’t use new outlook. To many things don’t work for me. I’m using search folders in old outlook and achieving the same results. Doesn’t seem to be the same functionality for a shared inbox though ?
On my work desktop, I've got a very specific setup on Outlook Desktop (classic for lack of a better word). My work laptop I have turned on the NEW Outlook and while I like the modern look and a few of the features like Snooze etc mentioned here, the Rules I have defined on my desktop Outlook are pretty extensive - I have about 70 of them. Both the NEW Outlook I'm using on the laptop, as well as Outlook on the Web do not even SHOW a Rules menu option under Outlook settings. Nothing on the web when I search for this seems to point to a solution. I'm also the Global Admin of our company's 365 account, and I have not been able to get a single user that can pull up OWA and see the rules option show - it is simply missing. What direction would you suggest we go in - other than stick w/Outlook "classic" on the desktop?
I can’t get my head around why the rules would be in the old Outlook, but not in the new Outlook or OWA.
Well done. Thank you.
Great Video, I like videos from you and as always this is also a Great Video.
My goal is to find quickly an old email.
In the Search it would be good to be able to search 2 or more categories in the same time.
I would archive more, replacing my current folder structure, if the index function on outlook wasn't absolute crap and the search function would work better. Current search up to 12 months, acceptable results, over 12 months worth of data..... useless...
Using web email rather than desktop seems to give much better search results and faster. The local indexing is slow in my experience.
Control+Shift+V then you can type the name of the folder… for quick sorting functionality
Agreed web works well for this
Hi, great video thanks. I have an issue in my Outlook app, I can't see the categories under my inbox on the left side, just like you did in minute 5:40 can you please advise?
Thank you for your video. When l do as you say in the categories l have done everything you said but when l click on the archive to put them into my categories they do not go over they stay in the archive, if you what l mean. Can you help.
so handy!
Jonathan, do you offer private tutorial sessions?
We are due to release some courses soon!
@@bearded365guy Hi, I mean private 1 on 1 sessions for hire where I could ask specific questions on some topics.
I really like the idea of archiving and categorising emails but does that mean I can’t find emails on the iOS app as it’s an old version???
Using an iPad or iPhone? Can you not use the Outlook app?
Sorry, what I meant was that the current version of the iPad/iPhone app doesn’t give you the ability to search by categories in the same way you can with the web version.
Hi John, Thank for your tips, that help me a lot, but I have a issue on outlook 2021; when I select an email, it takes 2/3 min to download pics in that. do you know what problem come from?
In Outlook (new) from windows 11 no issue about this
Have nice day
Sergio
That’s a long time! internet good?
@@bearded365guy Sure I have 100MB/s dowload
I’m glad they have the email templates feature, but it seems limited to the individual user. It’s not helpful for those of us who need to share lots of templates across a department, for example. (Unless I’m missing something?)
No, you’re right. It’s a basic feature. Microsoft could do so much better.
You can type an email outs and then click file and save as, then save the file as an .oft file and place it into a share folder for your department or company and everyone and then click the file and it will open a new template for who every clicks on the file 👍🏻
@@peterstalworth Much appreciated. Yes, that's how we handle it now. It's a bit clunky as people have to go somewhere besides Outlook to get their templates. I was hoping for a better solution in the future, especially since the new outlook simply wouldn't open OFT files until recently. I guess we can keep doing what we're doing as long as they don't deprecate the file type.
Won't swap to new outlook until shared mailboxes are added properly and not hidden away.
I would really like to be able to archive into favourites, but in my outlook on both web app or desktop the favourites do no show up underneath the archive header in the navigation bar. It makes it really hard to look for what is in your to-do archive category. So I think I will just have to use folders until I have access to that feature. (i have folder view turned on).
Hi, do you use a Mac? Or do you have the “classic” Outlook?
@@bearded365guy I switched from classic desktop to the webs app after watching your videos (onPC). Everything is the same apart from not being able to see the favourited folders in my archive. I have searched around on forums and others have this issue as well. I cannot search by category in the web version, but can do that in the desk top app. So am sort of using both!
Really useful, thank you!
Great video - but why do my sent emails show up in the category I have replied to? I have a rule already set that all sent emails go to the deleted box - any advice would be appreciated
Instead of categorizing emails, why not create a To-Do list with categories like "Follow-Up," "Waiting For," and "Next Action"? You can easily drag and drop emails into the appropriate list. Plus, when someone replies to an email, you can quickly clear the task from your To-Do list instead of going back to the "Follow-Up" category to remove the flagged message. There’s also a direct link to the email in the To-Do list if you need it. Am I missing something? Thanks for the video, and I’m interested in the Office 365 course-could you provide more information?
@@GarrettDoucet-gd6om Yes, that also works nicely. I will be announcing the course soon.
thank you! you have a funny accent, though 😂
Thank you for an excellent video. There are lots of options for me to consider using.
Having been in a team managing a shared inbox in old outlook. we had categories for status, and connected to dynamics, and many folders. How would you deal with that?
Hi there,
Please could someone help with this issue?
I have ‘show as conversations on’
I have a folder that is “waiting on response” which I move emails from my mail inbox to there. When the person does reply to my email it comes into my main inbox which is good, but there previous email is still in my “waiting on response” folder.
I essentially want them replying to take the whole conversation out of that folder, and for the email to remain as just one email conversation!
I hope this makes sense, please let me know if anyone can help?
Thanks