7 Best Microsoft Outlook Tips in 2025! Contacts, Calendars, Etc

For example, they can help you more easily identify what you can do now and help you group similar tasks so that you can do them all at once. Regardless of your server setup or organization size, this document will be useful to you.

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And reading this article means you are probably one of its 400 million users worldwide. By having a single folder, you don’t have to think about which folder holds which messages, and you know that everything in this folder is something that you have looked at before and wanted to keep. To quickly mark a message as read, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Q. If you are expert Outlook tips by FixTechGuide taking notes or minutes for the meeting, you can also use OneNote to insert meeting details from Outlook into your notes. After the meeting, you can send your notes to the attendees as a message.

View the calendar and inbox side by side

Learn how to unlock AI-powered presentation creation and boost your productivity. Use your organization’s solution in place of AutoArchive, and as always, follow your corporate policy. If your corporate policy dictates that you have multiple folders for each type of item, follow that policy.

You should, however, reduce the number of email addresses that you have to deal with. Fortunately, with Outlook, you can view multiple accounts simultaneously. In addition to your work email account (Exchange Server), you can add other accounts such as Outlook.com or Gmail to the same profile in Outlook. As you go through your task list and your calendar, do similar tasks together. For example, if you have only a few minutes, make all of your phone calls (if you have just a few). Tackle energy-intensive tasks (for some, that might be responding to messages) when you have more energy.

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To view the Scheduling Assistant when composing a meeting request, on the Meeting tab, in the Show group, select Scheduling Assistant. Choose a time when everyone can meet by looking at the invitees’ free/busy information in Calendar. Use the Scheduling Assistant to view all meeting attendees availability. Rather than using Bcc to inform a third party of an issue, forward the message after you send it. Use the Bcc feature to remove extra people from an email conversation when you deem that they no longer need the extra email or if the conversation topic has changed. If you need more information or are investigating the issue separately, respond to the whole Contact Group to let everyone know that you are responding and then reply to the individual separately.

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By default, CiraSync will remove a contact from the targeted mailbox if it is removed from the Source. If you want to allow users to keep these obsolete items, check Retain repair corrupted OST in Outlook obsolete items. Check Populate Outlook Auto-Complete List if you want these synced contacts to appear in the Outlook Auto-Complete list. CiraSync allows you to sync shared mailboxes at your company, shared mailboxes at another company, public folders, and Salesforce contacts. The third office file system is the “Perennial file” and I’m not talking about flowers here. These would be your Archive Folders at the bottom of the Navigation (Folder) Pane.

If possible, keep your personal and business tasks in one place. Keeping one list reduces the number of places that you need to look for what needs to be done. Even if you already have only one list, use categories to sort your personal from business tasks and manage your list effectively. Your personal tasks will be stored on your company’s Exchange Server and could be visible to your modern authentication troubleshooting IT department, so only put appropriate personal tasks on your list. Your Inbox is a place that other people can manipulate; what you put in your reference folder is strictly up to you.

Instead, create a new task with the name of the meeting; right-click and drag the messages to the task (copying as you go). Looking at the whole picture of your time and your tasks will help you to prioritize important work over less urgent tasks. It will help you to make it clear to others what can and can’t be realistically expected of you to accomplish. Reviewing your past week and upcoming week is also a useful way to help you prepare for a weekly meeting with your manager or help you prepare a status email message. As part of good time management, you need time to deal with your messages, manage your appointments and tasks, and reflect on what you have to do. You can also add a category to help you see at a glance where your next action is.

• The following rules will help you look professional and get your message across.
• Send your calendar in a message when you set up meetings with people who can’t see your free/busy information, such as people outside of your company.
• If it’s filled with folders you don’t even recognize, move all mail into the reference folder and delete your existing folders.
• The reality is that if you have a day filled with meetings, you have less time to complete tasks and write messages, so move tasks to other days.
• For example, if you have only a few minutes, make all of your phone calls (if you have just a few).
• It’s a best practice to have a central repository for your messages, so that you can refer to them after you’ve “dealt” with them.

File these messages in your reference folder (1-Reference) by selecting your Reference Quick Step. Adding a category will make the message easier to find later if you need it (for example, @Project). Once an item has been flagged, it will appear in the To-Do Bar. By flagging it and filing it into your reference folder, you have processed it, and now you can move it out of your view. But because it’s in your task list, you can move on to your next message, knowing that you will return to your flagged items later.