Customizing How You View Items

You can look at items, such as messages, in a variety of ways, or views. By default, the messages in your Inbox are listed by the date you received them. You can quickly reorder your messages by clicking one of the column headings so your messages appear in alphabetical order by the name of the sender. To control what and how much information you see, you can choose a default view or customize a view in Outlook so your items always appear in an order or format that works best for you. Outlook allows you to group, sort, and filter items. Group organizes items base on a particular field (an element for storing a particular type of information). Sort arranges items in ascending or descending order according to a specified field. Filter shows items that match specific criteria, such as "High Priority."

Customize the View of Your Messages

In Mail view, display the folder you want to customize.

Click the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.

Click Fields.

Double-click the fields that you want to appear in the Folder view.

Double-click the fields that you don't want to appear in the Folder view.

To change the order of the fields, click the field in the Show These Fields In This Order list box, and then click the Move Up or Move Down button until the field is in the position you want

Click OK.

Click OK.

Set a Filter to Show Certain Items and Files

Click the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.

Click Filter.

Type a word to search for.

Click the In list arrow, and then click a field.

Enter the sender, recipient, and time frame as necessary.

Click OK.

Click OK.

Remove a Filter

Click the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.

Click Filter.

Click Clear All.

Click OK.

Click OK.