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Conserve Time With Custom Search Folders in Microsoft Outlook

Searching in Outlook is pretty simple, however why bother typing out the exact same searches over and over if you perform them regularly? Custom-made Search Folders let you conserve those customized searches so you can return to them with just a click or more.

And while it’s tempting to simply consider Custom Search Folders like a saved search, they’re really cooler than that. Because they’re immediately upgraded, they actually work more like virtual folders– comparable to the Labels feature in Gmail, except more effective. Desire a folder that shows only messages that are unread, from a certain person, and have several attachments? No problem.

Let’s take a look at how to set them up.

Develop a Predefined Search Folder in Outlook

Outlook currently has a variety of predefined search folders that you can make use of. You can’t even more personalize any of these, but they’re worth having a look in the beginning simply in case they cover your needs.

To begin with, you’ll find your search folders at the bottom of the list of folders in your Outlook data file on the left side of the window. Each data file has it’s own search folder, so if you use Outlook to examine more than one account, you can establish different search folders for each one.

You won’t have the ability to even select that “Search Folders” folder, however, till you’ve developed your very first search folder. To produce a search folder, switch to the “Folder” tab on the Ribbon, and then click the “New Search Folder” button.

This opens the New Search Folder window. You’ll see a lot of predefined search folders arranged into categories like Reading Mail, Mail From People And Lists, and Organizing Mail. The majority of the folders are quite self-explanatory, so we will not cover them in detail– you can simply check out them.

Here, we’re developing a brand-new search folder that reveals unread mail. It’s a very useful search folder to have around because it shows all your unread mail, no matter what folder it’s kept in. Just click the search folder you want to produce, and then hit the “OK” button.

Pretty basic, best? Now, let’s take a look at creating your own customized search folders, which are way more effective.

Create a Custom Search Folder in Outlook

Custom-made search folders let you additional criteria that the predefined search folders do not consist of– you can basically search by any field an Outlook message contains. More significantly, you can develop a custom-made search folder that utilizes multiple requirements to select messages. For instance, you could have one only display message from certain individuals and that have specific words in the subject line.

To produce a search folder, switch to the “Folder” tab on the Ribbon, and then click the “New Search Folder” button.

In the New Search Folder window, scroll down to the bottom of the list, select the “Create a Custom Search Folder” alternative, and after that click the “Choose” button that appears.

In the Custom Search Folder window, enter a name for your folder.

Next, you’ll establish the requirements for the search, so hit the “Criteria” button.

The Search Folder Criteria window lets you actually tailor your search, and you can select as a number of the available requirements as you want.

The “Messages” tab contains standard criteria that lets you search for particular words in the subject or message body, senders, and recipients. You can likewise limit the search to messages where you are the only individual on the “To” line or on the “To” or “Cc” line with other people.

And you can even specify a time range for the messages based on when they were received, sent, customized, and so on. So, for example, you could reveal just messages that were received in the last 7 days.

The “More Choices” tab provides a lot more criteria for narrowing down your search. You can browse by messages in particular categories, those that are unread or have attachments, by the importance of the message, those that are flagged or not, and even by the actual size of the message. That last one can be handy for discovering and deleting big accessories, by the way.

The “Advanced” tab lets you add criteria based on all the fields an Outlook object can store. There are loads of them, so we won’t cover them here. However if you require to search by something you have not discovered on the other tabs, the opportunities are you’ll discover it by clicking that “Field” button and searching the menus.

When you’re done setting all the requirements you desire on those three tabs, proceed and click the “OK” button to go back to the Custom Search Folder window. There’s another thing you might wish to configure here before you’re done.

By default, the custom-made search you create will pull from all the folders in your Outlook data file. If you want to limit that to simply certain folders, click the “Browse” button.

In the Select Folders window, select the folders you wish to include in the search, and then click the “OK” button.

And after that back in the primary Customize window, proceed and click “OKAY” once again.

Outlook create the customized search folder and adds it to your folder view.

Once you master using it, the Custom Search Folder function is pretty effective. Here are just a few examples of things you might utilize search folders for:

And that simply scratches the surface area. So, what sort of search folders do you create? Let us understand in the remarks!

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