How to filter emails in Outlook

Maximum Outlook users are receiving hundreds of emails every day. Often they face difficulties to find any email from the inbox or any folder. If you know how to filter emails in Outlook can help you to get rid of these issues. It is very simple and easy to use the Filter email command from the ribbon. In this article, I will show you how to perform this task.

Read More: How to search in Outlook email?

Where is the Filter Email command?

In the Home tab, go to the Find group, and you will find the command Filter email. See the screenshot below to be clear.

In the Find group, you will also find Address Books and Search People.

What is the Filter Email command used for?

Generally, when we search for an email we use a keyword or a phrase to search for a specific email from an inbox or another folder. The Filter Email command is used for built-in searches. It can be used as a better alternative to a search box with some built-in searches.

For instance, If you want to search for those emails which have attachments only can use the Filter Email command. Your search results will show all emails containing attachments.

How to filter emails in Outlook?

Go to the Home tab, and under Find group you will find the Filter Email. Here is the screenshot of what sub-command you will get under this command.

• Unread: You have to select this command if you want to filter all unread emails in the mailbox. Sometimes, we forget to respond to some emails, and due to new emails arriving in the mailbox, old unread emails are lost. To filter all those unread emails together we can use the Unread command in the Filter Email.
• Has attachments: In case, you are looking for emails having an attachment, this filter is very much essential for you.
• This Week: It may happen that you know the specific email is received on a specific day or week, If you use this filter, it can narrow your search result.
• Categorized: If you have categorized emails in your mailbox, you can filter them with this tool. You can find all categorized emails in a row.
• Flagged: Maybe you are looking for all Flagged emails together, this command can help you. You can find all Flagged emails in a row.
• Important: Email senders often set priority to some emails as per their importance. Sometimes, they sent emails with high importance, sometimes with low importance. If you want to sort out all important emails together this filter option is the best.
• Sent To: Me or CC: Me: All emails are not sent to you directly, some emails have been received as you are in the CC. Maybe you do not need to respond but it is important to respond to the email that emails where you are in the To field. To find all emails sent to you, this can be a fantastic tool.
• More Filters: All that I have discussed above are the built-in features but still you may need to search by yourself. To make a search by yourself, you can use the More Filters command.

All search results are shown in your current folder temporarily. But it is not important to show search results in your current folder you may create a custom search folder instead. Let me describe how to do this.

How to create a custom search folder?

• In the folder pane, there is a folder name Search Folders. Please right-click on that folder and select New Search Folder.

• Scroll down and select Create a custom search folder and click on the Choose button.

• Give the name of your search folder, Click on the Criteria button.

• Set your criteria, press OK and back to the folder pane.
• A new custom search folder named Has Attachment is created with all emails that have attachments. See the screenshot below.

Benefits of a custom search folder

A custom search folder allows you to filter your search results in a specific search folder. You can take action and delete the custom search folder once you have completed your tasks. In a sense, it is also a temporary search folder, if you delete your custom search folder, emails will remain in the mailbox.

A custom search folder allows you to filter your email as per your requirement, it shows all your filtered emails together.

In this article, I have described how to filter emails in Outlook and also on a custom search folder. I hope, this content is helpful to you, if you have any queries please post comments below. I will come back to you soon. Thanks a lot for being with us.