Switching to Outlook 2003 - but how do I find my messages

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Jameson
  • Start date Start date
D

David Jameson

As an on-again, off-again Outlook user in the past, I have generally used
Eudora for mail, mainly because of the way it is able to handle filtered
messages, opening the mailbox of each sender in separate windows, making it
easy to see my new messages.

However, Eudora finally crashed once too many times and I decided to bite
the bullet and installed Outlook 2003.

I have created rules for some of my regular senders so that when mail comes
in from any of those senders, the messages moved to the appropriate
subfolder.

But the problem is that I cannot in general easily determine that I have
unread mail from people. For example, although Outlook displays the number
of unread messages beside a top-level folder name, it does NOT do this if
the folder is nested. So unless I expand the entire tree, new messages are
essentially lost. Even if I did expand the tree, it's impractical to have to
scan that tree all the time to see if there are any messages.

My next step was to add a new rule as the very first item in the message
rule list whose purpose is simply to generate an entry in the "New Item
Alert" window. That is an improvement (although it's pain to manage because
everytime I add a new rule, I have to go in to the rule list and move the
"New Item Alert" rule back to the top) but it doesn't solve the problem
completely. If I CLOSE Outlook and then open it later, the "new items" are
lost so I'm back to square one.


So the question is, is there a view that could be used to show a list of all
messages that are unread, regardless of where they are? Without such a view,
I don't understand how Outlook can be used to manage messages efficiently
from a large number of senders.

Thanks,
David Jameson

--


___________________________
Dr. David H. Jameson
CTO, DigiPortal Software Inc.


"Winning isn't everything but losing isn't anything"
(Brant Lake camp song)
 
Thanks - I didn't notice that folder (probably because I have so many other
folders).
I'll check it out.

I appreciate your quick response.

D

--


___________________________
David H. Jameson

"Winning isn't everything but losing isn't anything"
(Brant Lake camp song)



Diane Poremsky said:
have you looked at the unread search folder? this scenario was the purpose
of adding search folders to Outlook 2003

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours


http://www.poremsky.com - http://www.cdolive.com
Expert Zone http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone

Search for answers: http://groups.google.com
Most recent posts to the Outlook newsgroups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=microsoft.public.outlook.*&num=30


David Jameson said:
As an on-again, off-again Outlook user in the past, I have generally used
Eudora for mail, mainly because of the way it is able to handle filtered
messages, opening the mailbox of each sender in separate windows, making it
easy to see my new messages.

However, Eudora finally crashed once too many times and I decided to bite
the bullet and installed Outlook 2003.

I have created rules for some of my regular senders so that when mail comes
in from any of those senders, the messages moved to the appropriate
subfolder.

But the problem is that I cannot in general easily determine that I have
unread mail from people. For example, although Outlook displays the number
of unread messages beside a top-level folder name, it does NOT do this if
the folder is nested. So unless I expand the entire tree, new messages are
essentially lost. Even if I did expand the tree, it's impractical to
Click to expand...
have
to
scan that tree all the time to see if there are any messages.

My next step was to add a new rule as the very first item in the message
rule list whose purpose is simply to generate an entry in the "New Item
Alert" window. That is an improvement (although it's pain to manage because
everytime I add a new rule, I have to go in to the rule list and move the
"New Item Alert" rule back to the top) but it doesn't solve the problem
completely. If I CLOSE Outlook and then open it later, the "new items" are
lost so I'm back to square one.


So the question is, is there a view that could be used to show a list of all
messages that are unread, regardless of where they are? Without such a view,
I don't understand how Outlook can be used to manage messages efficiently
from a large number of senders.

Thanks,
David Jameson

--


___________________________
Dr. David H. Jameson
CTO, DigiPortal Software Inc.


"Winning isn't everything but losing isn't anything"
(Brant Lake camp song)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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