This feature has been available in Office 2007 from the beginning but we never covered it yet, and it was something I overlooked. After playing around with it for a while however, I found that it is a good way to manage the multitude of emails I get everyday. Here we will go through colorizing contacts who are sending messages so they’re easier to spot. Also categorizing the subject matter into different color groups seems to help in keeping thing straight.

Color Code Senders

Open Outlook and click to highlight the message you want to color code.

Go to Tools and then Organize.

Ways to Organize Inbox opens up and you want to click Using Colors. Now you can select the color you want to associate with that contact. You can also choose a specific color for messages sent to only you, which comes in handy as a way to distinguish between group and personal messages.

Here is an example of what can be done with the colors. You might only want to create a couple of colors for the most important sender though, I went a bit overboard with this example.

Color Categories

Another helpful way to visually organize your messages is adding color categories to them. You can customize the which email subjects are related to each color category.

The message will have the category color bar across the top and you can Right-click the bar to change the color.

You can also Right-click on a message under the Categories section to change the category.

You can rename each category to whatever makes sense to you.

You might want to make a new category for different mails. Go to Actions \ Categorize and All Categories.

In the Color Categories screen click on New and give the category a name and color, you can also assign a keyboard shortcut to it as well.

Now you can sort through your email messages based on the type of category they are in.

If you want to be able to quickly glance at your email to get an idea of what is there, using color categories can be helpful. Hopefully this can get you started with organizing your emails so you know what the pointy-haired bosses want you to do more effectively.

When experiencing a hectic day at work, nothing is more annoying than receiving tons of email while you’re trying to get things done. Email Prioritizer is a handy plug in that will let you put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your inbox by pausing new incoming messages.  It also lets you prioritize email through a 0-3 star rating system that you can customize. It requires Outlook 2007 running on an Exchange Server so is perfect for use at the office and not intended for home users.

Using Email Prioritizer

It will first install Visual Studio 2005 Tool for Office.

Then to continue you will have to agree to participate in Office Labs Metrics and Auto Update.

However, if you’re concerned about privacy, after it’s installed you can uncheck it in Options after installed.

To activate the Do Not Disturb feature just click on the button, you can select different times to leave it running from 10 minutes to 4 hours.  It will stop incoming mail for that time so you can concentrate on other work and not be distracted.  Messages that are flagged as Important will still be delivered however.

It allows you to sort through your email based on different priorities.

To set up new priorities click on Options and Edit priority rules.

Here you can customize priority rules for incoming mail.

Keep in mind that this is a prototype still in development and you will probably want to talk with your IT staff before installing. If you are tired of dealing with needless emails while trying to get real work done, the Email Prioritizer plug in might be exactly what you need.

Download Email Prioritizer

Using Google Calendar Sync

This small application is straight forward and currently will only work with Outlook 2003 and 2007.  Installation is straight forward following the wizard.

You will need to close any instance of Outlook that is currently open to complete the installation.

Now it is time to sign in and choose sync options and the amount of time between the syncs.

Sync Options

Choosing your sync options will be determined on how you want to share the data between Google’s calendar and your Outlook one.

• 2 – way Sync:  Allows all events in your primary Google Calendar and Outlook calendar to be synced together.  You can modify an event in either calendar and it will sync the same in both.
• 1 – way Google Calendar to Outlook:  All events in your Google Calendar are added to your Outlook calendar.  If you want modified events to show on both calendars you will need to update the Google Calendar.  Any events modified in the Outlook calendar will not be shown in the Google Cal.
• 1 – way Outlook to Google Calendar:  All events in your Outlook calendar will be added to the Google Calendar.  If you want modified events to show on both calendars you will need to update in Outlook.  Any events modified in the Google Calendar will not be shown in the Outlook cal.

It will only sync with your primary Google calendar and Outlook default calendar so no events from a secondary calendar yet but perhaps it will be available in future versions.

Right click on the Taskbar icon to manually sync up the calendars, change options, or access additional info on the Google site.

It will work with XP (32-bit), Vista and I was able to get it to work with Windows 7 (64 & 32-bit editions) and according to the site it will not work with XP 64-bit at this time.  Personally I have found this a great tool for easily sharing events without having to open a separate browser window and logging in to change data. 

Download Google Calendar Sync Beta

Share Calendar Online

Open up the calendar in Outlook and Right-click the calendar you want to share then Publish to Internet and Publish to Office Online.

Next you are shown the Office Online Registration overview for an account if you don’t already have one.

Sign in using your Microsoft Live ID.

Accept the terms and conditions of using Office Online.

Choose a user name and finish up the registration.

Now you will get the Publish Calendar to Microsoft Office Online window where you can set up permissions and other settings.

After the calendar is published you can send out invites to let people know the calendar is up. 

It opens up a new email message with the information for the shared calendar and you can add contacts. 

Subscribing to Shared Calendar

Once the contact receives the invite just click on the Subscribe or Preview button under the Share tab.

Click on Yes to verify you want to subscribe to the calendar and its updates.

Click on the advanced button above for advanced configuration options.

If the recipient wants to preview the calendar they are sent to the online calendar.

If you live in Outlook during the business day this is a great way to make sure everyone is on the same page.  This is also a good way to share events with family and friends.

You’ll want to be careful not to disable an add-in that you actually need, but I’ve used this technique many times over the years to make Outlook run much faster.

Disable Outlook Add-ons

Open up the Trust Center by navigating to Tools –> Trust Center on the menu.

On the left-hand pane, choose Add-ins, and then near the bottom of the window you’ll see a button that will let you manage your COM Add-ins.

From this window, you can disable anything that you aren’t using. My recommendation would be to start off by only disabling non-Microsoft add-ins, restart Outlook and see if that solves your slowdown problems.

You’ll notice that some of the add-ins in the list won’t let you remove them under Windows 7 or Vista—for instance, if you want to remove Microsoft Outlook Mobile Service, which lets you send text messages to cell phones—you will need to close Outlook and re-open it as administrator.

If you are using Windows 7 and have it pinned to your taskbar, you can close Outlook and then hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys while you click on the taskbar icon. Repeat the steps above, and you should be able to remove the other Add-ins without problems.

If you have a ton of feeds, this could also theoretically speed up Outlook—at the very least it makes your system a little cleaner.

Note: If you aren’t using Internet Explorer or Outlook as a feed reader, you could simply delete all of the RSS feeds.

Disable Outlook Common Feed RSS Sync

To turn this off, go to Tools –> Options from the menu and click the Advanced Options button on the Other tab.

Now you can uncheck the item “Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feed List”.

Now that you’ve disabled the Sync feature, you can delete all of the feeds from under the RSS Feeds folder.

You’ll probably want to also empty your Deleted Items folder after removing the feeds.

Once you receive and email with a bunch of individual attachments in Outlook 2007 click on Other Actions in the Actions section on the Ribbon and scroll down to Save Attachments.

This will open the Save All Attachments dialog box where you can choose them all or only certain ones by holding down the Shift or Ctrl keys to highlight them. When you have selected the ones you want just click OK.

This will open up Windows Explorer so you can choose the directory to save the attachments.

Now that we have covered that lets look at an even easier way. Highlight all of the attachments by using Shift + Left Click or Cttl + Left Click, now Right-Click and choose either Save As or Copy. This allows you to save the attachments to a specific directory or copy them using the Clip Board.

A Simple yet effective time saving tip when working with a lot of documents and Outlook all day. For Office 2003 users you can do the same thing by going to File \ Save Attachments.

YouSendIt.com is a popular website for sending and receiving large files of up to 100MB for free. They now have an easy to use add-on for Outlook 2003 and above. After installation restart Outlook and you will notice the YouSendIt button with a drop down menu for signing in, configuring settings, and getting support.

To start using this plug-in you will need to log into your account or sign up for a new one. The very cool thing is they allow a 14 day free trial for a pro, business, or corporate account. This allows you to send up to 2GB files and various total usage amounts per month at different rates. After the trial you are downgraded to YouSendIt Lite which should be adequate for individual use.

Another thing to check out right away is the configuration, where you can designate YouSendIt for files over a certain size. You might want to contact your IT department for the attachment limit.

That is basically all there is to it unless you need to configure proxy settings. Just compose a message and include that large attachment as you normally would. You will have a confirmation message pop up and just click Yes and your file is sent.

While the file is being uploaded to the YouSendIt servers there is a couple of things to take note. There will be a progress bar and abort option where the plug-in button is at. Also you will notice a YouSendIt Outbox. The plug-in also includes support so you can contact the company with any problems, make sure to turn on logging to send diagnostic files for easier troubleshooting.

Conclusion

I have been using YouSendIt for several years now and have always been happy with the service. This small plug in makes it more efficient to send large attachments without having to navigate to the website. The free account allows up to 100MB files and for larger files there are different subscription plans. I have only tested this on my home Outlook setup and work great (upload time seems equal to using the site). If anyone has used this with Exchange Server we definitely welcome your comments!

Download The YouSendIt Outlook Plug-In

First right click on the email message you want to move to automatically move to a folder and select Create Rule.

This will open up the Create Rule screen so we can choose the conditions for this email. Depending upon how you have your mail set up (Exchange, Gmail, etc) will determine what to select for the conditions. Most of the time I set the rule by sender to one of my email addresses. Also, you can add visual and sound notifications. After you have selected the conditions the next thing to click is “Move the item to folder”.

Now browse the folder location you want the email to be sent to or create a new one.

Click OK in the Create Rule window then OK on the following confirmation dialog box. That’s it, now all daily emails will be sent to a specific folder.

This is just one of many helpful rules you can create in Outlook to stay organized.

Also Related: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/microsoft-office/use-outlook-rules-to-prevent-oh-no-after-sending-emails/

Enable Outlook’s Web View

With Outlook open, click on View \ Toolbars and then check Web on the menu.

This will display the Web address bar which you can move to wherever you want in the toolbar area.

Now, just enter any Web address into the bar and the view pane will show the webpage within Outlook using the Internet Explorer engine.  If you’re just looking at the one page just click the Back button and it will return you to the Outlook view.  Or you can explore the entire site and / or surf the web.

View Your Email Messages in Internet Explorer 

An opposite way to go is view a email message in Internet Explorer versus Outlook.  With the email message open in the Actions section on the Ribbon click on Other Actions and View in Browser.

A security warning message will pop up asking if you’re sure you want to continue.

Internet Explorer will open up displaying the email message.

Be sure and also check out how to Get Maps And Directions In Outlook 2007