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The average business professional sends/receives approximately 100 emails a day and spends more than 50% of their day reading, sending and managing their email. Outlook 2010’s new Conversation View takes managing your inbox to a whole new level by grouping the entire message by threads similar to a discussion board. Many email messages that we send/receive throughout the day are part of an electronic conversation, so why not keep them as such!
Turn On Conversation View
Conversation View helps you manage your emails by grouping them by subject and sorting them with the newest message on top.
- In you Inbox, click on the View Ribbon.
- Check the Show Conversations box.
- Outlook will ask you if you want to activate Conversation View only in the folder or all folders. Click on All Folders.
Conversation Options
Show Sender above the Subject
By default Conversation View shows the subject line first, but if this view is confusing and you want to switch it back to the traditional view of having the author first then this option is for you. If there is more than one send involved in the conversation, then it will display all their names at the top.
Always Expand Conversations
By default only the most recent message received is shown in the list view to help you quickly scans your emails, but if you want you can change the default to Always Expand Conversations to display all the emails in a conversation thread.
Use Classic Indented View
Classic Indented View shows all your replies indented under the most recent email received in the conversation thread.
Working with Conversations
Working in Conversation View makes it easier to manage your inbox because Outlook groups all the email threads regarding a specific subject in one area for easy access. If you use the default setting, then the most current message is displayed. It is easy to tell that you have an additional email connected within the subject thread because it displays an arrow next to the subject line. There are two types of arrows that you can click on to expand the conversation thread. A side-ways triangle indicates there are more emails received in the conversation thread. A black triangle indicates there are additional emails in other folders that are part of the conversation thread. This is especially important, because it allows you to see the emails that you have sent that may be in your sent items folder.
Moving a Conversation Thread
Another advantage to working in Conversation View is cleaning up or organizing your inbox by simple moving the top message in the thread. This will also work for deleting an entire thread.
Categories
Categories that you apply or are automatically applied will be displayed in the top most message of the thread. This will help keep you alerted that it belongs within a specific category even if it is not the top most messages in the thread.
With the various customization options described in this article, you will likely find a Conversation View solution that will allow you to efficiently and effectively manage your inbox.
