August 25, 2008

Laurie Hughes

If "out of sight, out of mind" ever causes you to miss messages or assignments, Favorite Folders may have a solution. Located at the top of the Navigation Pane, this folder list provides a place to keep your most important e-mail folders, right where they can catch your attention. Find out how you can customize, minimize, or even remove Favorite Folders.

Many people aren't aware of the ways to take advantage of Outlook Favorite Folders. Some even feel that it's "just taking up space." What's a hardworking feature to do? Stuck with a bad reputation, abandoned and unused, this innocent little folder list ended up no one's "favorite." And now that we're saying "But wait! There's more!" no one will take a second look. Here's what I mean:

• "I want to remove the "Favorite Folders" window. I don't want it, I don't need it, and it's wasting my screen space."
• "Don't force people to have Favorite Folders!
• "Please don't just tell me I can't remove Favorite Folders. Fix the program so I can remove it."

Ouch!

It was painful to read those comments. But we do listen to our customers, and here's the proof: After the introduction of the Favorite Folders pane in Outlook 2003, many people said they preferred more vertical space in the main Navigation Pane, and (loudly) proclaimed that they wanted "that darn Favorites pane outta there!" Well, we heard you and in Outlook 2007, you can turn off the Favorite Folders feature, you can minimize it to its heading, or you can remove it altogether.

But not so fast! If you were one of the dissenters, did you actually give Favorite Folders a chance? The original advantages included keeping your most frequently used folders visible at the top of your Mail folder list, quickly accessible. In Outlook 2007 we've added more value by making its folders accessible from the new minimized Navigation Pane. (Not familiar yet with this new feature? For more information, see Minimize or expand the Navigation Pane.)

Care to take another look?

Consider Favorite Folders a desktop "real estate" bargain

If you consider your desktop real estate highly valuable and tend to clear away all "clutter," you may be pleasantly surprised by the way that Favorite Folders are displayed in the minimized Navigation Pane … less ends up being more.

Besides the main Navigation Pane button, only the folders in Favorite Folders appear as vertical folder buttons in the minimized Navigation Pane. (A click of one of these vertical buttons opens up that folder's messages in your main Outlook window. Click the Sent Items button, for example, and you'll see a list of the messages you've sent recently.) When you click a folder button in the minimized Navigation Pane, you see a list of the mail items in that folder. So if you put your most important folders in Favorite Folders, you can quickly open them from the vertical buttons in the minimized Navigation Pane anytime you are working in Mail view, while still maximizing your desktop real estate.

Customize the minimized Navigation Pane to display your most important folders

The number of Favorite Folders that you can display in the minimized Navigation Pane is mainly limited by size:

• The size of the vertical space in the minimized Navigation Pane
• The size of the text in the folder names in Favorite Folders

Generally, you can customize the minimized Navigation Pane to display two to four folder buttons. This means you may need to prioritize and rearrange the folders in Favorite Folders according to which ones you want to see. (You might need to shorten their folder names, too.) Check out the instructions below so that you can experiment for yourself.

Option 1: Arrange folders in Favorite Folders

Time to pick and choose the folders you need to keep your eye on the most during your work day.

Add or remove folders in Favorite Folders

• In your Mail folder list, right-click the folder that you want to add or remove, and then click Add to Favorite Folders or Remove from Favorite Folders on the shortcut menu .

  or

• Click a folder and drag it to or from the Favorite Folders list to add or remove it.

Move folders in Favorite Folders

Folders in Favorite Folders don't have to be listed in alphabetical order the way they are in the main Navigation Pane. Bonus!

 Note   The order in which the folder buttons are listed in Favorite Folders is the same order in which they appear in the minimized Navigation Pane.

• In your Mail folder list, right-click the folder that you want to move, and then click Move Up in List or Move Down in List on the shortcut menu.

  or

• Click a folder and drag it where you want in the Favorite Folders list.

Option 2: Make more space in the minimized Navigation Pane

Do any of the following to create more vertical space for folder buttons in the minimized Navigation Pane:

• Shorten the names of the folders in Favorite Folders. The length of the folder name affects the length of the button.
• Drag the horizontal splitter bar down and hide the view buttons. These are the Mail button, the Contacts button, and so on.
• Remove some or all of the view buttons from the minimized Navigation Pane. To do so, at the bottom of the Navigation Pane, click Configure buttons , click Add or Remove Buttons, and then click the button that you want.
• Use a higher screen resolution on your computer monitor.
• Maximize your main Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 window. A taller window can create more space in the minimized Navigation Pane.

If you've given Favorite Folders a chance and still don't like it…

Here's how to minimize or remove Favorite Folders (if you must).

Minimize Favorite Folders

You can minimize and expand Favorite Folders as needed, making your folders available when you want them, and keeping them out of the way when you don't.

• In the Favorite Folders header, click the arrow.

  

• To expand Favorite Folders, click the arrow again.

Remove Favorite Folders from the Navigation Pane

Removing Favorite Folders does not affect the folders in the list. If you have folders listed in Favorite Folders when you turn the feature off, those folders will be there when you turn it back on again. (Apparently hope remains! Hope that someday you will reconsider using Favorite Folders ... and if you do, it will faithfully have kept your folders handy.)

• On the View menu, point to Navigation Pane, and click Favorite Folders to uncheck it.
• Click Favorite Folders again to turn the feature back on.

But before taking the drastic action of removing Favorite Folders, give it a try. See if the combination of quick access to your high priority folders and screen space savings makes it a valuable addition to your Outlook window. Be a "Favorite hater" no more!

About the author

As a writer on the Microsoft Office user-assistance team, and a park ranger in days past, Laurie enjoys the common thread of connecting people with their environment. Whether outdoors or in the office, life goes more smoothly when you understand how things work! Writing for applications like Project and Outlook offer an opportunity to lend a helping hand to those trekking software frontiers worldwide.