question worthy of a noob

November 15, 2007 2:04 PM

Outlook2007 Filter: Is it possible to sort my inbox so that unread messages always appear at the top of the list? Funnily enough, I cant figure out how to do that.

Whats the "field" needed to sort on that? I tried sorting on all the 'fields' I could see, but none of them wound up putting "only unread messages" (or those marked 'new') at the top.

I mean I love outlook, I really do, but times like this I empathize briefly with the MS bashers. (but then I always go back to loving it - really, it does work quite well).

posted by jak68 to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I use a search folder called "Unread Mail". Just right click on your search folders -- the first one is "Unread Mail". By keeping that selected you'll just have your unread mail available.
posted by The Bellman at 2:28 PM on November 15, 2007

I'm sorry, I'm using Outlook 2003 -- so maybe that's not around anymore. Also in outlook 2003 you can right click on "Arranged By" select "Custom" click "Sort" and then choose "Unread" as the sort order. Don't know if they have changed that.
posted by The Bellman at 2:30 PM on November 15, 2007

Right-clicking a column heading in 3-pane view, customize current view, sort by, received does the trick for me in 2003...
posted by Mr. Gunn at 2:35 PM on November 15, 2007

Mr. Gunn has it, should work just as well for 2007 -- sort by "unread"
posted by cusecase at 2:51 PM on November 15, 2007

still on 2003 here, but can't you click the "mail icon" column?
posted by misterbrandt at 6:29 PM on November 15, 2007

ok, Bellman wins. THanks for all the suggestions though, it took a bit of trial and error.

(What, no one is using Outlook 2007 yet?)

Turns out the simplest way to do it was to poke around in search folders and behold, a pre-made folder called unread mail already existed. (Though I had to right click it and limit it to just my inbox and to ignore the subfolders).

Funny that no amount of clicking on fields, icons, columns, etc -- you know, all the obvious and intuitive things -- resulted in this particular filter or sort. Go figure. Thats MS for ya. (I'm not MS bashing tho; I hate apple much worse :D
posted by jak68 at 11:59 PM on November 15, 2007