Smart Folder classification in Outlook

September 7, 2022 1:34 PM

Is there an Outlook plugin which uses some smarts to suggest folders into which I may want to sort the current email into, based on how current email is sorted

I use Outlook for work, and email is a big part of my day. I keep it all organized with a pile of folders, but every day I seem to always be scrolling up and down the list to put the email in the correct folder. Has anybody encountered a plugin or similar which would use some smarts (same conversation, this person usually ends up in a certain folder etc.) to give a suggested folder(s) into which I would like to sort the email into? The right click - move email to folder only shows recently used (I think).

posted by defcom1 to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Not an answer to your question, but you should think about the value to you of a folder taxonomy so fine grained you spend significant time scrolling through it. This sounds like busy work to me. Would fewer folders work? Would one non-inbox folder work? Given search exists, is there a reason why it matters which folder an email is in once it's no longer in the inbox?
posted by caek at 1:54 PM on September 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

You might want to look at Quick Steps which installs shortcuts on your toolbar to move the selected message to a folder. You can even ctrl+click and select multiple messages at once. I also second that you might want fewer folders and use search more.
posted by soelo at 2:07 PM on September 7, 2022

Are you creating rules to do that? Using rules in Outlook can move incoming mail into folders, leaving you with a small(er) inbox to manually sort. Every time you find similarities in what you are sorting from an inbox, create a rule.

I don't know of an extension that "learns" and creates rules for you - but it might exist.
posted by TimHare at 2:07 PM on September 7, 2022

Rules are what I use for this. Outlook provides a simple rule (do something with all messages from so and so) and lets you create ones that are much more complex.

I've found I was missing too much mail that got sorted into folders and just not read, so I started using the roles to categorize some of my email. I can simply sort the inbox by category to get a quick look at what's there, then move the complete category to a folder (or delete it) all at once. I have perhaps a dozen categories, each color-coded, and less than a dozen folders, some of which get populated by rules (stuff I need to have for reference, but don't especially need to read) and some of which are populated by dragging and dropping whole categories at once. Some categories just stay in the inbox, still color coded.
posted by lhauser at 5:33 PM on September 7, 2022