I’ve been using this “trick” for quite some time, but finally got around to posting a blog about it. This basically outlines, step-by-step, how to make your Outlook email act like your email in Gmail. That is of course, grouped by conversation.
I’ve grown so used to having all of my email conversations grouped into one set in Gmail (so I don’t have to go chasing them all over the place), that I wanted the same convenience for my work email, which uses Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Not only will it make you 10 times more productive, it will also help to prevent that embarrassing late response to an email that has already been answered (since all messages in that conversation will be grouped together visually).
Anyway, here’s how to set up your Outlook to act like Gmail:
1) Be sure that your inbox (or folder) is not already arranged in a group (it is often grouped by date by default). To make sure this is off, right click on the header bar, go to Arrange By –> and make sure Show in Groups is unchecked.
2) Right click on the header bar and select Field Chooser. The Field Chooser window appears.
3) In the Field Chooser window, select Conversation and drag it to your header bar.
4) Close the Field Chooser window.
5) Right click on the header bar and select Group by Box.
6) An area above the header bar will appear that says, “Drag a column header here to group by that column.”
7) Select the Conversation column header and drag it into that area above the header bar.
8 ) Your inbox (or folder) is now sorted and grouped by conversation like Gmail.
Awesome right?
Sometimes, when you’re looking for a specific email, you’ll want to sort by “Received” or “From” or “Size”, etc. What do you do then?
- Just drag the Conversation box back to the header and you can sort by any column.
- When you want to group by Conversation again, just drag the Conversation column header back to that area above the header bar (step 7 above).
Hope this helped y’all! Have fun!
World Wide Ed 