Using Smart Grouping

If you looked closely at the message list (middle section) in Figure 1.1, you noticed the date groups. Outlook uses a new view structure that groups messages by the sort field. You'll see natural language words describing the date groups: Today, Yesterday, Sunday, Saturday, Last Week, Two Weeks Ago, and so forth.

On occasion, you might even see messages grouped in Tomorrow. This happens when the sender's date is set ahead and you use IMAP or HTTP mailboxes and download only message headers. Outlook normally reads the received date, but when only headers are downloaded, it reads the sent field instead.

When a different field, such as the From field, is selected for sorting, the messages are grouped by the display name in the From field. Click on the Arranged By field at the top of the message list to select a different field to group by. Disable grouping by choosing Sho w in Groups on the menu; select the menu option again to re-enable it.

Select Custo m to bring up the Customize View menu. The button at the very bottom, R eset Current View, resets all the current view settings to their defaults, except your group header shading.

Although the custom view settings are explained more completely in Hour 3, the O ther Settings button contains the settings that control the look and feel of the list view and Reading Pane.

Use the options in the Other Settings dialog to change the look of the list view. You might want to select Sha d e Group Headings to add some color to the group headers so that you can see them more easily. Change the Reading Pane position and show or hide the headers in the Reading Pane using this dialog.