Microsoft Outlook is one of the most popular email software. It is used worldwide for sharing information, creating task lists, events and more. Over the years, Microsoft has enhanced and added many new features to Outlook. Being an Outlook user, one must know the ways to save time and human efforts with the use of its advanced features. In this blog, we’ll give you some tips that will enhance and improve Outlook’s productivity and efficiency.
Let’s get started…
1. Add a Background Image to a Message: You can give your emails a colorful and original background in Outlook. Some recipients may not see this background image, if their email program is configured to not download or display images or special designs from the internet.
How to add a background image?
Create a New Message > Go to Options > Select Page Color > Select Fill Effects > Click on Picture
2. Color-code your calendar: It gives the ability to categorize and rank your tasks. Rather than staring at a wall of to-dos, you can see what types of tasks occupy your schedule and how urgent they are. This way you can develop your own system that works for you.
How to color code?
From your Calendar folder, select View > View Settings > Select Conditional Formatting > Select add to Create a new rule > Give your rule a name and use the Color drop-down to pick a color.
3. Increase the Outlook Attachment Size Limit: Every time you try to attach a file that exceeds the limit, Outlook reports an error saying, “The attachment size exceeds the allowable limit.” This can be a bit annoying for those who are required to send files of relatively big sizes frequently.
How to increase the limit?
Press Windows+R > In the Run dialog box, type “Regedit” > Navigate the registry tree and go to the entry corresponding to your Outlook version > Double-click the “Maximum Attachment Size” value > In the Value data text box, enter the desired attachment size limit in KB.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts: Outlook provides a number of keyboard shortcuts, such as:
- “Ctrl” + “1” will open Outlook mail
- “Ctrl” + “2” will open calendar
- “Ctrl” + “3” will open contacts
- “Ctrl” + “4” will open tasks
- “F3” will open the search field
5. Forward an Email as an Attachment: There may be times when you want to forward an incoming email to someone as an attachment so that they know you haven’t edited the message. Or you may want to attach an email to the message to send them a record of a conversation
How to forward it?
Select the email in the message list> On the main Outlook Ribbon, select More > Forward as attachment.
Wrapping Up
Most of us spend a significant amount of time managing our emails. However, the above mentioned tips will enable you to organize your inboxes, streamline your task lists and enhance the efficiency of your Outlook accounts.
