Tian Bai

I’ve been asked several times about how to track emails as threads (grouped by subject) in Outlook.  I did find some neat tricks and would like to share them with you here.  I’m using Outlook 2007, and you may need to adjust these a little bit to apply the same idea to older versions.

The main idea is as simple as

1. Create a Search Folder, for say "Threads", which searches in both Inbox and Sent Items, with the Criteria being blank.
2. For the "Threads" folder, choose ‘Arrange By: Conversation‘ and ‘Newest on top‘, so that the most recently updated thread will pop on top.
3. In addition, I put the "Threads" into Favorite Folders, so that I can access it conveniently through the Navigation Pane.

If I send an email to a group which I belong to, the email will be in both Inbox and Sent Items.  Previously this issue just wastes some storage space, but now it’s more annoying since I would see the duplicate in the same thread.  To address this issue completely, I create a rule to filter out all incoming emails sent by myself (move them to Deleted Items).

BTW, if you have rules to move email lists, which you subscribe and only want to check intermittently, to some sub-folders of Inbox, it’s better to disable ‘Search subfolders’ for Search Folders like "Unread Email" and "Threads".

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