Howtime

Tasker tips

Find Files, Trip Details, Contacts And More

Powered by Microsoft Graph, selecting the Search magnifying glass immediately loads your most recent documents, favorite contacts, trip itineraries, and even package delivery tracking. Many of the search criteria used by desktop Outlook also work in the Outlook phone app.

Filter Emails In the Outlook App

People love to keep emails, even if they know they’ll never use them again. That’s okay, because you can filter them.

In the Inbox or any folder, select the Filter button.
Choose to filter by any of All messages, Unread, Flagged, Attachments, or @Mentions Me. @Mentions Me is a feature in desktop and web Outlook that works just like @mentions in social media apps.

Sync Phone Contacts With the Outlook App

By default, your phone contacts aren’t synced with the Outlook app.

On the Outlook home screen, select the Settings gear icon.
Select the account to sync with Outlook Contacts.
Scroll to Sync contacts and use the slider switch to turn it on. The color of the switch will change.
It will ask Allow Outlook to access your contacts? Select Allow. If sync ever doesn’t work, go back into Settings, scroll to the bottom, and select RESET ACCOUNT.

Manage Notifications By Account

Got more than one account using your Outlook phone app? You can control the notifications from each.

On the Outlook home screen, select the Settings gear icon.
Scroll to and select Notifications.
Select Notifications, New email sound, or Sent email sound and make the changes you want.

Listen to Emails In the Outlook App

Great for the multi-tasker, Play My Emails is a powerful feature of Outlook. It uses Cortana’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to do more than just read emails. Cortana will check Outlook and let you know about meeting changes or conflicts. It can give email details, like who else received the email, if it’s a long or short email, and how long the email is to read. The Play My Emails for iOS is available in Canada, the US, United Kingdom, Australia, and India. For Android, it’s only available in the US. Expect it to come to you eventually.

Turn Focused Inbox Off or On

The focused inbox is something you either love or hate. There’s no in-between, it seems.

Go to Settings and scroll to Focused Inbox, then select the sliding button to turn it off or on.

Turn Organize By Thread Off or On

Just like the Focused Inbox, organizing emails by conversation thread is a divisive topic.

Go to Settings and scroll to Organize email by thread, then select the sliding button to turn it off or on.

Set or Change Swipe Options

With just a flick of the finger, you can tell an email where to go. The first time you swipe an email, Outlook will step you through your options. If you change your mind, you can also change your swipe.

Go to Settings then scroll to and select Swipe options.
Select Change or Set Up if it’s shown.
A slider will open showing the options: Delete, Archive, Mark as read, Move to folder, Flag, Snooze, Read & archive, and None. Choose one.
You’ll see the option is set.
Swiping right on an email will now delete it.

Sort Contacts by First or Last Name

Go to Settings then scroll to and select Sort by.
Choose either First name or Surname for last name.

Set an Automatic Reply

Go to Settings then scroll to and select an account. This only works on Office 365 or Microsoft Exchange accounts.
Select Automatic replies.
On the right, select the slider button to turn automatic replies on or off.
Choose either Reply to everyone or Reply only to my organisation, then select whether to use Different messages for my organisation and external senders or not.
Create or edit your automatic replies, then select the check mark in the top-right corner to set the changes.
Confirm the change by selecting OK.