Organize Email Messages

Too many emails in your inbox? You can organize email messages into separate mailboxes or folders so you can easily find them later when you need them.

First, you need to think about the categories that best describe and organize your email messages. You can organize emails based on their subjects, senders, and priorities, etc.

Using the Outlook desktop application

Create a rule to filter messages into specific folders

To filter messages into specific folders, right click a message then select “Rule” from the pop-up menu:

The Create Rule window pops up, under “When I get e-mail with all of the selected conditions”, choose one or more of the following options:

• sent from a specific email account
• contain certain words in the subject
• sent to a specific email account

Then under “Do the following” section, check “Move the item to folder:“, click “Select Folder…” button, Rules and Alerts window pops up, navigate to the folder that you want the message to be save into, then click OK.

Move incoming messages to a particular folder

When an email message is highlighted or displayed:

• Click “Move to folder” icon 
• Select a desired folder from the list to remove the email from the inbox
• To keep the email in the inbox select “Copy to Folder”.  This will duplicate the email in the folder selected while the original remains in the inbox
• To move this email and future emails in this conversation click “Always Move Messages in This Conversation”

Another way to move a message is to right click on a message, then select “Move” option from the pop-up menu.

Organize email messages in Outlook Web Application

Move incoming messages to a particular folder

When an email message is highlighted or displayed:

• Click “Move” 
• Select “Move to Folder” or “copy to folder” option from the list

Another way to move a message is to right click on a message, then select “Move to folder” or “Copy to folder” option from the pop-up menu.

Save sent email to a particular folder

After sending an email message, go to “Sent Items” folder, right click on the message, select “Move to Folder…” option from the pop-up menu, select a desired folder, click “Move” button.