What regular users of the Outlook mail service, either for personal purposes or as a work method, one of your main priorities is to keep order in your inbox.
For this purpose, Outlook puts at your disposal a great diversity of accesses and methods, among which is the option to mark incoming messages as read in any mail folder.
The way to apply this function is relatively simple and it is possible to do it both on our mobile devices and in the Outlook web application, and in the next paragraphs we will give you the instructions, step by step, to do it correctly.
What is the use of marking a message as read in Outlook?
The main objective of this function is to act as a tool to maintain order within the inbox and in the different email folders, making sure all messages are marked as read. Usually once you have received a message, It will be highlighted in your inbox until you open it. If for any reason you decide not to open it, what you can do with this item is select it and mark it as unread.
This function is applied especially in the personal field with emails that we already know what they are about or we simply have no interest in reading, such as a promotion or a newsletter.
In the labor aspect, It is a less used function, since it is necessary to open the emails since it may be a client, a task, or some information that you do not want to miss. Although it is not used heavily in the inbox, in the case of Outlook, in the section “Others” In general, emails that do not require a response are received, which you can afford to mark as read, since their content is not relevant to your needs.
How to mark all emails as read in Outlook step by step
Given the Outlook it is such a widely spread tool, inbox organizing features are available on all your platforms, so you will have the possibility to manage your emails either from your computer or mobile.
Let’s see:
On mobile
When you receive an email in Outlook, you will be able to view them from the mobile application, and locate it quickly, thanks to the fact that new entries are highlighted with the sender’s name and email subject in boldregardless of the folder it is in.
To mark these new entries as read, just follow these steps:
- Login to the application of Outlook on your mobile.
- Locate the messages that you want to mark as read, either in “Priority” or in “Others”.
- Hold down on one of the messages until checked, and then select all the other messages you want mark as read.
- Press on the three points, located in the upper right corner, to open the options.
- Choose the option “Mark as read”.
It should be noted that while unread messages will be highlighted, they will be located in the folder in order of entrySo if you have old unread messages that you want to mark as read, you will have to scroll down in the selected folder until you find them.
In the computer
The web application of Outlook offers a wider range of email management tools than its mobile version, in addition to a broader view of unread emails, so you can locate them more easily.
For this, all you have to do is follow the steps below:
- Log in with your user credentials from Outlook.
- Enter the folder in which the emails you want to mark are located.
- Position the cursor about the email in question and check the box next to it to select it
- Repeat the procedure with all the emails you want to mark as read.
- Click on the icon “…” located at the bottom of the top toolbar.
- Select the option “Mark as read”.
By native Outlook configuration, incoming emails are kept in order of arrival regardless of whether they are opened or not, making old unread emails lower in the tray. If you want to mark these emails as read, you will have to search for them manually or with the search tool.
Other batch actions you can do in Outlook
Batch actions are translated as actions that you can perform on a large number of messages in order to improve productivity, by reducing the number of times you must repeat an action. In addition to marking messages as read, there are a wide variety of actions you can take to manage multiple messages with a single procedure.
And now we will present you a list with the most relevant:
Move messages
If you have a particular order from your inbox, at some point you will receive one or more messages that, according to this order, they belong to a different folder. Fortunately, among the Outlook management options, you will find the possibility to move messages to certain folders or even create our own folders.
To organize the location of your messages in Outlook, follow these steps:
- Log in in your account Outlook
- In the inbox (or any other folder) check the messages you want to move. You can do this by hovering over them, and checking the box that will appear.
- Choose the option “Move to” on the top bar.
- Select folder in which you want to place the messages.
The messages will be sent automatically to the destination folder. By selecting a large number of messages, you can save a considerable amount of time, since you only need to perform the procedure once.
Mark as favorites or important
Messages that contain files, information or data that are of importance to you, they should be highlighted so that they are easier to locate after a certain amount of time has passed from receiving more emails.
For this, the procedure is described below:
- Enter the folder in which are the emails you want to mark as important.
- Position the cursor over the messages you want to mark and select the circular box that will appear next to it.
- In the top toolbar, select the access “…”.
- Press the option “Mark” in the drop-down menu.
A quite prominent flag-shaped symbol will appear that will allow you to highlight the messages you want to have in view while you scroll through the mail folder.
Send to trash
Outlook you have a folder of deleted items, to which you can send all unnecessary emails in any of our folders. The deleted items section is easily accessible and you will have the possibility to review the emails hosted there for a certain time.
To send items to this folder, follow these steps:
- Enter the folder you want to debug.
- Select the emails what do you want to send to “Deleted elements”. To do this, place the cursor on each email, and check the box to select it.
- click in “Remove” in the top options bar.
By doing this, the messages will disappear from the folder you are managing, and will be stored for a period of 30 days, then they will be completely removed and unrecoverable.
Anchor to the top
This action is particularly useful to use messages as reminders each time you enter your inbox. It is about selecting one or more messages and configuring them in such a way that they are permanently located at the top of your emails.
This action can be done as follows:
- Select the folder you want to manage. In general, this action is carried out on the inbox, since it is the first folder that opens when entering Outlook.
- Select the messages you want to highlight, You can check them by clicking the circular box next to them.
- In the top bar, select the option “…”.
- click in “Anchor” in the drop-down menu.
You can see that the selected messages were organized in a separate section located in the upper area of the folder, and regardless of the emails that come in, these pinned messages will remain in this folder permanently until you undock them manually.
Postpone message
By postponing one or more messages, our productivity increases thanks to the fact that we are managing our time by assigning a date and time when you should worry about replying to these messages.
In general, this action is performed on messages that do not require immediate action, so you can decide what to do with them at a later time, and this can be done in the following way:
- Open the folder that where are the messages you want to postpone.
- Check all the messages you want to postpone by clicking on the checkbox.
- In the options bar, select the option “Postpone”.
- Select the time that the messages will last postponed.
Once you select the span, the emails will disappear from the folder and will be stored in the postponed folder until the time is up, after which they will appear in the folder again.