With so many email messages arriving in your Outlook Inbox daily, it can be easy to miss high-priority messages or emails you want to respond to more quickly. Microsoft Outlook includes various ways for you to organize and prioritize your messages.
One way to highlight important or priority messages is through Conditional Formatting. To apply Conditional Formatting, follow the steps below or watch this helpful step-by-step video:
https://youtu.be/qPdg3vFNZKU
Note: A temporary glitch keeps me from sharing the video directly from YouTube. Please use the link to view my video on Conditional Formatting in Outlook.
Working with Conditional Formatting in Outlook
What if I have messages from the Big Boss and want them to stand out? In a typical inbox, these could be easily mixed up with many other messages flowing through Outlook. With Conditional Formatting, you can create a condition to format messages from the Big Boss (or a top client or another priority contact) so they display in a larger font, different color, or both.
To Set Up Outlook Conditional Formatting:
- Go to the View tab. This is where we can customize and change the view of our Inbox.
- From here, we’ll choose View Settings. And you may want to explore this to customize what columns are displayed, how your information is sorted or filtered, and other settings.
- But our focus right now is Conditional Formatting. Pick this option. This is where you can see, for instance, why unread messages will show up in bold and blue. So know that you can change that if you want a different display or preference.
- First, we’ll choose Add to highlight the important messages from the Big Boss. Next, we’ll name this rule, such as The Big Boss. Use something descriptive so it’s easier to return to that later.
- There are two things that you’ll want to do here. The first is to choose how you want your message to change in appearance. We want the formatting or the appearance to be different–perhaps a larger font or different colored text. Pick from any of the options that are available to you, such as large red text. Once you’ve set up that formatting, select OK.
- You’re not done yet because we also need to set up the condition, that is, what are the circumstances where this font change will be applied? To do this, we choose Condition and then set those conditions or criteria. In my example, it will be a specific email address for the Big Boss, but you could dig into the filter, and it could be something that perhaps is in the subject line or in the body of the message. Once you create the condition, simply OK, OK, and watch what happens.
So now those key messages will really pop and stand out. If you haven’t been in your Inbox all day long or just went to a meeting and were gone for a couple of hours, you can spot that these might be your top priority responses. Conditional Formatting applies to new messages as well as messages already in your Inbox.
If you have a lot of conditions, then the value of Conditional Formatting will be diluted, but this might be a way for you to flag those key messages from your valued client, from a supervisor, or some other email that’s coming in that you want to make sure it has top priority.
Where can you use Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Outlook to highlight those important messages? You’ll find other Outlook tips and techniques here.
© Dawn Bjork, MCT, MOSM, CSP®, The Software Pro®
Microsoft Certified Trainer, Productivity Speaker, Certified Speaking Professional
