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5 Amazing Outlook Hacks in 2021

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Outlook helps people across the globe to manage personal information and their emails, thus being acclaimed as the best manager web app from Microsoft. It consists of webmail, calendars, contacts, and tasks services. Nowadays, when work from home is the choice, you should know how to organize your office for optimal productivity. In this article, we’ll share the five best Outlook hacks recommended for digital office management. For additional excellent Outlook tips and tricks, do follow and join Microsoft office training. Also, if you would like to know more about Outlook and HIPAA compliance, check Hushmail’s article on this important topic.

The first launch on 31st July 2012, Outlook continued to have millions of active users worldwide. Its promise to respect user’s privacy and allowing uninterrupted and ad-free conversations is remarkable. Let’s explore some valuable tips on email filing.

Dark Mode

Dark themes reduce the luminance emitted by device screens while still meeting minimum color contrast ratios. They help improve visual ergonomics by reducing eye strain, adjusting brightness to current lighting conditions, and facilitating screen use in dark environments – all while conserving battery power.

The dark mode is enabled by default when you use the black theme. To switch to the black theme in Outlook:

  1. Go to the toolbar and select File, then select Office Account.
  2. Under Office Theme, select Black.
  3. Select the back arrow at the top to return.

Quick Steps 

Quick Steps apply multiple actions at the same time to email messages. It helps you quickly manage your mailbox. It is available from the home tab in the group of the quick steps, which comes with pre-defined quick steps for various things you might want to perform on an email like sending them to your manager, sending them to your team, or making a reply or delete of a message.

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You can also create your own make a Quick Steps gallery of mail actions that you often take.

  1. In Mail, select Home.
  2. In the Quick Steps group, in the Quick Steps gallery, select the Create New Quick Step.
  3. In the Name box, type a name for the new Quick Step.
  4. Select the icon button next to the Name box, select an icon, and then choose OK.
  5. Under Actions, choose an action that you want the Quick Step to do—Select Add Action for any additional activities.
  6. To create a keyboard shortcut, in the Shortcut key box, select the keyboard shortcut that you want to assign.

Add Calendars

Usually, when you are in Outlook, you can come down to the calendar at the bottom, and you can see your list of calendars available. Schedulers are required to keep track of more than just our appointments and plans. We also use them to track town events, team schedules, and other activities. Instead of adding those events yourself, you can add them directly by adding calendars from schools, professional sports teams, and even television shows to your account. By doing this, you can manage and plan your activities in the best possible ways easily.

  1. In Outlook.com, select Calendar > Add calendar  > Create new calendar.
  2. Give your calendar a name.
  3. Customize your calendar with a color, a charm, or both.
  4. Optional: Add your calendar to an existing calendar group.
  5. Select Save.

Mailbox cleanup:

There are multiple locations you can clean up your data in your mailbox.

  • In Outlook, choose File> Tools > Mailbox Cleanup.

Do any of the following:

  • View the total size of your mailbox and individual folders within it.
  • Find items older than a specific date or larger than a certain size.
  • Archive items by using AutoArchive.
  • View the size of your Deleted Items folder and empty your Deleted Items folder.
  • View the size of your Conflicts folder and delete this folder.
  • Under the Home tab, choose the clean-up option. Here you can clean up conversations, folders, and subfolders. When you run any of these, it removes redundant messages, so there is only storing one copy of any particular set of data.

Out Of Office:

Outlook provides two different methods for sending out-of-office replies, and it depends on the type of account you have. If you have an IMAP/SMTP/POP mail account, when you go to File, you will have to create a rule, and there won’t be an out-of-office automatic reply option but if you have an exchange server or office 365 account, when you go to file there is an automatic reply option. To set that one:

  1. Select Send automatic replies.
  2. Select Only send during this time range.
  3. Choose the dates and times you’d like to set your automatic reply for.
  4. Type in a message.
  5. Select OK.