Suppressing New Mail Alerts and Reminders during meetings and presentations

Suppressing New Mail Alerts and Reminders during meetings and presentations

Outlook has various alerts such as the New Mail Desktop Alert and of course the notification sound. I also have some additional alerts set via rules.


When entering a meeting or giving a presentation, all these alerts are not so nice to have anymore.

Apart from closing Outlook, is there any way to turn these alerts off all at once?

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Copy the current Mailbox folder structure to a new pst-file

Copy the current Mailbox folder structure to a new pst-file

I want to start off with a new empty pst-file (my current one is getting too big to manage) but I'd like to keep the folder structure for my new pst-file.

Is there any way I can recreate that automatically?

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Pin Flagged messages at the top of my email list

Pin Flagged messages at the top of my email list

I sometimes use the “Follow Up” command in Outlook to flag my messages that I need to get back to later.

Is there any way to keep these flagged messages pinned at the top of my email list?

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Recover Deleted Items in Outlook on the Web (OWA)

Recover Deleted Items in Outlook on the Web (OWA)

I’ve accidentally permanently deleted an email when using Outlook on the Web (OWA).

When this happens in Outlook, I can select the Folder tab and then choose: Recover Deleted Items. In OWA, there is no such tab and I can’t find the “Recover Deleted Items” button anywhere.

How can I recover deleted items in OWA?

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Highlight or Color Code emails from known Contacts

Highlight or Color Code emails from known Contacts

I like the concept of making it more clear which emails are from my contacts and which aren’t but I don’t like to move these emails out of my Inbox as explained in: Move emails from unknown Contacts out of your Inbox folder.

Can I highlight emails from my known Contacts in my Inbox folder instead?

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Editing received messages and subjects

Editing received messages and subjects

I sometimes receive a message without a subject or with lots of unneeded text (like a big signature or a long list of previous addresses). I'd like to keep the rest of the message, and just strip that content or add a subject.

Is there any way to edit a received message?

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Not receiving requested Read Receipts

Not receiving requested Read Receipts

For some emails I manually set the option “Request a Read Receipt” and for some contacts I always request a Read Receipt via a message rule.

I’ve tested this myself and it worked as expected but I hardly receive a Read Receipt from other people. How can this be?

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Move emails from unknown Contacts out of your Inbox folder

Move emails from unknown Contacts out of your Inbox folder

I know Outlook offers ways to move emails from certain people into different folders. However, I’d like to do the reverse; Move emails from unknown contacts into a different folder.

This way my Inbox will only be filled with messages from people I know instead from people I don’t know.

Can I do this in Outlook?

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Disable or limit the Recent Items list in the Attach File menu

Disable or limit the Recent Items list in the Attach File menu

When I attach a file, I get list of recent files that also includes movies and songs and other items that I will never email. Most of them are too big to attach anyway.

Is there any way to filter the Recent Items list, limit the amount of files being shown there or get rid of it completely?

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Create a Desktop shortcut to an Outlook folder

Create a Desktop shortcut to an Outlook folder

I’ve been using Outlook since forever and I remember that I used to be able to create Desktop shortcuts to Outlook folders simply by dragging a folder out of Outlook and onto my Desktop (or any other folder in Explorer). This allowed me to quickly go to or open Outlook in a specific folder.

When I try do this now, my mouse pointer turns into a blocked shield.

Is it still possible to create Desktop shortcuts to specific Outlook folders in another way?

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