11 Sep 2018 Outlook Emails Show in Groups by Date

How to Group Emails in Microsoft Outlook by Date

In my Productivity Training, I often get asked how to organise and group emails in their Outlook Inbox by the date received.  That is, emails are grouped by the day they arrived. Today, Yesterday, Last Week etc. In Outlook, this is called “Show In Groups”

This is actually the default view in your Microsoft Outlook Inbox, but the view can sometimes be changed inadvertently. When that happens, many people struggle to work out how to get it back. Although it is quite an easy change to make, if you don’t know how, it can be very frustrating.

Recently I received this exact request, so I decided to write a short article showing people how it is done.

Default Outlook Inbox View

The default view in your Microsoft Outlook Inbox is usually as shown in the picture below. (Although you might note that I don’t use any “Preview” options. I only see the Email Subject… but that’s another subject for another day!) Anyway, my Inbox as shown below is “Arranged by Date” (date received) and grouped by the date also….or “Show in Groups”.  (Today/Yesterday/Last Week, Last Month etc).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But sometimes, people lose the “Show in Groups” option and their emails are no longer grouped. Their Inbox now looks more like the picture shown below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now as you can see above, my Email Inbox is “Arranged By Date” (Received) which is good, but my emails are not grouped in any way. This makes it a little harder to manage emails effectively as it is not easy to see exactly when emails have arrived. There are a few ways to change this but I will show you the quickest way this can be done in the first instance.

Inbox Arrange By Options

If you point your mouse cursor at the Heading Row of your Inbox, (on the From, Subject, Received etc row) and Right Mouse Click, you will see the following drop-down menu options appear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice that in the graphic above, my emails are “Arranged By” Date. (Date is Ticked)

Arranging Emails by the Date received is the normal/default view and the one most people will use. But actually notice you have many other options too. You can arrange your Inbox by “From”, “To”, “Categories” etc…)

Now, to show your emails in groups, you simply scroll down with your Mouse to “Show in Groups” and select that option also as shown below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice how now, with the Show in Groups option ticked, my emails are now grouped according to the Arrangement I have selected. In this case, “Date”.

By the way, had I chosen to arrange emails by  “From”…then my emails would be grouped by Sender. That’s how this little handy feature in Microsoft Outlook works.

And here is another way to do this

In Outlook, there is always multiple ways to do things so here’s another way to do the same thing. So if the above did not work for you, try this option:

From your Outlook Inbox view, select the “View” Menu. In the Ribbon, you will see there are a group of “Commands” grouped in a section called “Arrangement” (See below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Date is not already selected as shown above, then select “Date”.

Next, Left Mouse Click on the right hand side of the “Arrangement” group of Icons (see the Purple Arrow above) to reveal more options as shown below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, select “Show In Groups” and now emails in your Outlook Inbox will now be organised by Date and “Shown in Groups”.

 

I hope that is easy enough to follow. If you still struggle or have a question, feel free to contact us and ask your question.

 

Geoff Prior – Lingford Consulting, September 2018

Workload & Email Management Training/Coaching. MBTI Consultant

 

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