By default Outlook groups messages that arrive in your Inbox by date. This throws up one disadvantage in that you cannot follow messages that come from the same sender or have the same subject line. Outlook 2010 includes a new feature that lets you manage conversations in an easy manner. The feature is called the Conversation View and you can find it on the View tab in the Ribbon. The Conversation View isn’t just an option you enable to sort your messages. You can actually tweak a few settings to make this feature work to your advantage. Let’s take a look at how you can use this feature to manage conversations in Outlook.
How to Manage Conversations in Outlook
The first thing to do is to enable grouping of conversations. To do this:
1. Click the Arrange By option on the Inbox panel and choose Show as Conversations.
2. Alternately, you can go to the View tab and check the Show as Conversations check box.
3. In the Microsoft Outlook message box that pops up, choose All Folders or This Folder and click OK.
Outlook will now group related messages or conversations with a small triangle to the left.
How to Customize the Conversation View
You can get more out of your conversations by tweaking a few settings. You can do this by selecting one of the options from the Conversation Settings dropdown.
Show Messages From Other Folders: This option ensures that Outlook also displays conversations from your Sent folder. These messages are an important part of the conversation but are usually not displayed in the Conversation view.
Show Senders Above Subject: Enabling this option won't add much value to your Inbox view if your focus is on subject lines rather than sender name. If however, you give importance to senders, then you can choose this option.
Always Expand Conversations: This option is better to have On as it enables you to be aware of the context of the conversation while browsing.
Use Classic Indented View: This option shows the title on the top, an indented message below that followed by the name of the sender.
If you select the first and third options, you will be able to view the complete context of the conversation. For example, if you received an email from Peter and responded to that message you can see at a glance the flow of conversation that took place between the two of you. If you don't enable this setting, you'll see only the original message from Peter.
You can also view conversations by flagged items, from a recipient, by sender, or by category and these options are again available in the View tab on the Arrangement group.
If you don't want to use conversation view, open the message, in the Editing group, click the Related dropdown menu and select an option to view related messages in that particular conversation or view related messages from the sender. You can also right-click a message in the Inbox and select Fine Related->Messages in this Conversation or Messages from Sender.
There are several advantages to viewing email threads in the Conversation view. For one, you can apply a number of actions to all the threads in a conversation. For example, you can apply a category to all the messages in a conversation in one stroke by applying it to a single message. Should more messages related to that conversation land in your Inbox, Outlook will automatically categorize them in the same category as well.
How to Clean Up Conversations
Another area where the Conversations feature comes in handy is when it comes to cleaning up redundant messages. Often a message thread contains a reply along with the previous email conversation included in the reply. Conversation Clean Up can evaluate the contents of each message and delete those conversations that contain previous messages included in them. When you clean up a conversation, you will finally end up with just one message containing all your conversation threads. Conversation Clean Up is best used when there are many responses back and forth between many recipients.
Remove Redundant Messages in a Conversation
To remove redundant messages in a conversation:
1. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Clean Up.
2. Then, select an option:
Clean Up Conversation: This option reviews the current Conversation and deletes redundant messages.
Clean Up Folder: This option reviews all Conversations in the selected folder and deletes redundant messages.
Clean Up Folder & Subfolders : This option reviews all Conversations in the selected folder and any subfolder that it contains and deletes redundant messages.
Ignore Messages in a Conversation
You can also keep unwanted conversations from your Inbox by using the Ignore Conversation feature. Ignore Conversation removes all messages related to the conversation and moves future messages related to that conversation to the Deleted Items folder. To ignore a conversation:
1. In the message list, select the conversation or the message within the conversation that you want to ignore.
2. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Ignore.
3. In the Microsoft Office message box, click OK.
4. Click Ignore Conversation.
That’s it. Your ignored conversations will now be in the Deleted Items folder. If you wish to start receiving the ignoring conversations back in the Inbox again, then:
1. In the Deleted Items folder, click the conversation or the message within that conversation that you want to recover.
2. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Ignore.
3. In the Microsoft Office message box, click OK.
4. Click Stop Ignoring Conversation.
The Ignore conversation feature should be used with great caution, because there may be times when you may really need to reading a particular conversation or message, and it won’t do well to miss out on it.
Now that you know how best to manage conversations in Outlook, go ahead and make the best use of the feature to organize your Outlook Inbox.
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