As a part of its ‘One Outlook’ plan, Microsoft has started phasing out the current Outlook classic and Mail apps with a new web-based Outlook app on Windows. While it’s not as feature-rich as Outlook classic, the new Outlook app has enough tricks up its sleeve to deliver a smooth email experience. Whether you want to manage your emails, tasks, or calendars on your laptop, use the top Outlook tips to boost your productivity.

9 Customize the toolbar and change layout

Microsoft Outlook is highly customizable. You can tweak the toolbar at the top and even modify the built-in layout per your needs.

1. Open Outlook on Windows and move to any tab at the top.
2. Click the three-dot menu and select Customize.
3. You can rename, edit, or delete groups, and customize other buttons at the top, then click Save.
4. Move to the View tab and expand Layout. You can tweak the Ribbon style, tweak the folder pane and reading panel, and even enable My Day with Calendar and Tasks integration on the right sidebar.

8 Change Outlook's appearance

Being a web-based Outlook app, you have all the modern themes at your fingertips to change the look and feel of the interface.

1. Launch Outlook and go to Settings.
2. Navigate to General > Appearance menu.
3. Pick any modern or classic theme based on your preference and click Save.

7 Manage your Outlook storage

By default, you get 15GB of free Outlook space, which is separate from OneDrive’s 5GB space. While it's sufficient for most consumers, you may run out of space after several years. You can either upgrade to a Microsoft 365 plan to increase inbox storage to 50GB or use the steps below to manage it.

1. Head to Outlook Settings and select General > Storage.
2. Expand Email storage. You can empty junk email, archive, delete items, or use other options to free up space in no time.

6 Set up Undo send

Did you accidentally send an email with typos or other slips? With a built-in undo feature, you can recall an email message within 10 seconds after you have selected Send. The feature isn’t enabled by default. Follow the steps below to set it up.

1. Open Outlook and head to Settings.
2. Select Mail and open Compose and reply.
3. Scroll to Undo send and use the slider to choose how long Outlook waits to send your messages, which will give you that amount of time to cancel the message, i.e. to Undo send. Click Save to implement this option.

5 Sweep messages to keep your inbox clean

As the name suggests, the Sweep function lets you manage messages from a specific sender with a single click. Let’s check it out in action.

1. Launch Outlook, go to your inbox and select any email.
2. Click the sweep icon at the top and check several options to choose from.
3. You can move all messages from a specific sender from the inbox folder into another folder.

For example, you can select your credit card company’s emails and move them in bulk to the Bills folder with a single click. Repeat the same for all the necessary recipients and organize your inbox in style.

4 Organize your emails with categories

If you receive hundreds of work and personal emails every day, use categories to organize the inbox.

1. Launch Outlook and select an email to which you want to assign a category.
2. Expand the category menu at the top and select a relevant category.
3. You can also select Manage categories and head to Settings. There you can edit or delete existing categories and even create new ones.

3 Automate your inbox with rules

Like Gmail, Outlook also offers rules to automate your inbox. You have multiple options to create powerful rules for your account.

1. Open an email in Outlook and click the three-dot menu beside a recipient.
2. Expand Advanced actions and select Create rule.
3. Select a specific folder where you want to move all messages from the sender. Click More options.
4. You can add more conditions and actions from the following menu. Run the rule to test it, then click Save.

The possibilities are endless here. It’s entirely up to you to create specific rules for your Outlook inbox. You can even add an exception to a rule.

2 Manage your emails in Microsoft To-Do

Outlook app is tightly integrated with the To-Do app. There are several ways to move your emails to Microsoft’s task management app.

1. Open Outlook and flag any email you want to refer to later.
2. Outlook automatically adds the email to the Flagged email list in To-Do.
3. You can also right-click on an email, expand Advanced actions, and select Create task. Outlook quickly moves your emails under the Tasks list on To-Do.
4. There is also another way to do this. Open the My Day tab from the top-right corner. Now, simply drag and drop an email from the Outlook inbox to a To-Do list.

Microsoft did a solid job with To-Do integration on Outlook. It’s much better than the previous experience with the classic Outlook app.

1 Automate repetitive tasks with Quick Steps

Quick Steps is one of our favorite Outlook features to automate repetitive tasks with a single click. They are basically rules that you can run manually from the top toolbar. For instance, if you frequently categorize your credit card messages, move them under the Finance folder, then forward the same to your accountant, you can complete all of these tasks with just a single click. Let’s create a quick step and run it.

1. Open Outlook and head to Settings.
2. Go to Mail and select Quick steps.
3. Select New quick step. Enter a relevant name.
4. Choose an action, and add multiple actions to your rule. In the example below, we have created a quick step that assigns a Red category, creates a task, and flags a selected email.
5. Move back to the Outlook inbox and select your message.
6. Expand the quick steps menu and select a rule to automate set tasks for an email.

Boost your email game

If you prefer the classic Outlook app on Windows, you can always disable the New Outlook toggle at the top to move back to the familiar email setup. While the new Outlook app was basic at launch, Microsoft did a commendable job with adding new features via frequent updates.

As you can see from the list above, the Outlook app works best within Microsoft’s ecosystem of apps and services. If you don’t use Microsoft 365 apps and want to switch to another email app, check our separate guide to find the top Outlook alternatives on Windows.