In the previous article, we discussed some of Outlook tips and tricks to improve your mail management for you. Here are some more hacks that can come in handy to speed up your work.
- Delegate Access To Your Mail And Calendar
Going on a vacation, but worried how your inbox would be managed. Don’t worry, with Outlook, you can delegate the access to your mailbox.
To do this, Open File tab ->Account Settings ->Delegate Access-> Click Add -> Enter the name of a person to whom you want to give access.
You can set the level of access by making changes in preferences. You can delegate calendar and task list while keeping emails and contacts private.
- Manage Read Receipts
If you receive a message with a read-receipt request, that means the sender wants to get the confirmation that you received the message. Well, you can customize their behavior.
All you need to do so, File tab ->Options->the Mail view -> scroll down to Tracking section.
Now you can choose whether the receipts should be sent or not.
Must Read: How to Configure Windows Live Hotmail with Outlook
- Scrutinize The Search By Creating Search Folders
Outlook lets you create search folders to speed your search for your important emails. For any search, you perform often, just save the search for quick access. Now click on Search Folders in the left panel, select “New Search Folder,” and then customize the search to your preferences.
- Get Emails That Aren’t Sent Directly To You Out Of Your Inbox.
You must receive emails which are not directly sent t o you that means you are CCed or BCCed o those emails. You can redirect the email to another folder so that they don’t pile up on your Inbox.
All you need to do is – go to Rules > New Rules-> the “Advanced Options” button. In the Rules window, select “where my name is not in the To box”, you will be redirected to a window, “Move it to the specified folder.”
- Desktop Alert
Every now and then, you get emails, if Desktop Alert is on, you get notifications of the same. Isn’t it a little distracting, especially when you are working on something important?
If you want to turn the alerts off –
Go to Options -> Mail -> disable “Display a Desktop Alert” option.
Must Read: How to Fix Outlook Search Problem
- Time Zones
If you constantly travel to the places with different time zones, you might find it irritating to see the meetings and appointments in Outlook at local time.
To change that, go to File-> Options-> Calendar, you’ll find the option for setting your local timezone. You can set a second-time zone to be shown to keep track of the time back at your home.
- “Post-it” Notes
Outlook has its own sticky notes. You can access them by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N from anywhere in the Outlook interface to create a new note. It works just like Sticky Notes. You can categorize them and change the background color You can manage your notes, by clicking on the Note icon at the bottom of the View pane: you can copy, print notes, search a specific note and more.
- Encrypted Email
It is always better to be cautious while sending emails. To ensure that email securely reaches the receiver, you can encrypt the content and attachments and only the recipients with whom you have shared the key can access them.
To do so, go to File-> Options-> Trust Center ->Trust Center Settings->E-mail Security. Enabling digital signing and encryption is very easy.
Note: You need to create and import a digital ID if you don’t already have one.
Click “Get a Digital ID” to see links to a range of providers
- Access Your Personal Email Within Outlook
You can add your personal mailbox to Outlook.
To do so, go to File -> Add account-> You will get a dialog box asking for providers(Gmail, Yahoo) information. You can set up the access via POP or IMAP.
Note: For 2013, Outlook, you just need to enter your email address and Outlook will take care of the rest.To access Outlook.com mail from older versions of Outlook, a window will open, click Manually configure server settings or additional server types -> Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector. Now you will be able to access your webmail along with your personal calendar.
Must Read: How Outlook Lets You Recover Accidently Deleted Items from Email
- Instantly create new emails and appointments
While checking the emails or scheduling the appointment according to them, you might have been switching back forth from calendar mode to email mode frequently. Fortunately, whether you are checking your inbox or your calendar, you can create new emails, appointments, contacts, go to Home tab -> New Items. If you don’t want to open Outlook to do so, you can right-click on Outlook icon in the Windows 7 or 8 taskbar to open a quick list offering shortcuts to create a new item.
So, this concludes our list of tips and tricks for Outlook. If you think, that we missed some, you can let us know in comment section below.
