Author: Tsakani Stella Rikhotso

Microsoft Outlook automatically groups items by date. However, you can also group items manually by using standard arrangements or by creating your own custom grouping. While you may be most familiar with the default groups in your Inbox, these groups are also applied to other mail folders.

The default groups that are displayed in your Inbox include Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, and Older. Some of the standard arrangements that are available include grouping according to Categories, Size, Sender, Subject, and Importance.

Sorting Messages: Menu Option

Depending on the size of your computer screen and how you have customized the look of Outlook, all of the mailbox headings may not display or have different options.

1. Select the mailbox folder containing the messages you want to sort. Select the Inbox.
2. From the View tab, in the Arrangement grouping, select the desired option.
3. Sorting Messages: Column Heading Option If you have several messages in your mailbox, you can sort them by any field in the Content area. By clicking a column heading you toggle between ascending and descending order sorting option. You can add, delete, or rearrange columns, referred to as fields, in the Content area.
   • Click the column heading you want to sort on. The messages will now be sorted by that column. Click Received and see how items are sorted. NOTE: By clicking the column heading a second time, the sorting order is reversed. The arrow in the heading indicates whether the field is sorted in ascending or descending order. Example below shows: From, Subject and Received.
   • Or
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Once you have your filing system set up with subfolders, an easy way to move one or more messages to a subfolder is to select the message or messages that you want to move and then use the shortcut menu:

1. Right-click the message.
2. On the shortcut menu, click Move to Folderto open the Move Items dialog box.
3. In the Move Itemsdialog box, select the destination (under Personal Folders) and click OK.

Other ways to move messages include:

• Dragging them.
• Using the Move to Folder button on the Ribbon. (This button is available when you have double-clicked the message to open it.)
• Using rules that you set up to move messages automatically.

Once you have created a personal folder, you will need to open it to see your data.

• Search your hard drive for the folders (usually they have the extension .pst, so you can use the search string *.pst).
• Launch Outlook and from the File menu choose Open => Outlook Data file.
• Select your personal folder(s).

Before you create a new folder, you must select the desired location for that folder. In the example, we will create a folder within the Inbox folder to help organize messages containing important memos.

1. Locate and select the Folder tab on the Ribbon. The Folder tab will appear.
2. Select the desired location for the folder and then click the New Folder command.
3. 
4. The Create New Folder dialog box will appear. Type the name for the folder and click OK.
5. 
6. The folder will be created in the selected location.
7. 

Outlook gives you many different tools for managing your email, including folders, rules, categories, and more.

Using Folders

Folders can help keep your messages organized. There are four default folders in Mail view:

• Inbox: stores all received email

• Drafts: stores items that are in process. You can compose an email message and save it to Drafts if you want to come back to it and work on it later

• Sent Items: Stores all sent email

• Deleted Items: Stores items that have been deleted from all other Outlook folders.

Other folders may include;

• Junk E-mail/Spam: Stores all email Outlook marks as junk.
• Outbox: Stores messages that have been queued for sending.
• Can you see the folders described above in the above picture?To access folder commands, locate and select the Folder tab on the Ribbon. The Folder tab will appear.
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By the end of this lesson, learners should be able to:

• Identify and explain default mail folders in terms of their purpose
• Create new mail folders in order to organize messages in an email application
• Copy and move email messages between mail folders
• Sort e-mail messages within a mail folder
• Change the priority of an outgoing message within an email application, in order to allow urgent message to be sent first

Once you start using Outlook regularly, it can be difficult to keep up with all your messages. Fortunately, there are several features that can help you manage and organize your messages. In this lesson, you will learn how to create folders, copy and move emails messages between folder, sort emails and change priority of outgoing messages.