Controlling Synchronization and Send/Receive Times 197
Configuring Other Messaging Options 204
Managing Messages and Attachments 207
OF all the features in Microsoft Outlook 2010, messaging is probably the most frequently used. Even if you use Outlook 2010 primarily for contact management or scheduling, chances are good that you also rely heavily on the Outlook 2010 email and other messaging capabilities. Because many of the Outlook 2010 key features make extensive use of messaging for workgroup collaboration and scheduling, understanding messaging is critical to using the program effectively.
This chapter provides an in-depth look at a wide range of topics related to sending and receiving messages with Outlook 2010. You’ll learn the fundamentals—working with message forms, addressing, replying, and forwarding—but you’ll also explore other, more advanced topics. For example, this chapter explains how to control when your messages are sent, how to save a copy of sent messages in specific folders, and how to work with attachments.
This section of the chapter offers a primer to bring you up to speed on the Outlook 2010 basic messaging capabilities. It focuses on topics that relate to all types of email accounts. The we will is the place to start learning about Outlook 2010, so launch the program and open the Inbox folder. The next section explains how to work with message forms.
Note
If you haven’t added email accounts to your profile, see the appropriate chapter for details. Chapter 7, explains how to configure POP3 (including Gmail accounts), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and Hotmail accounts; Chapter 39, explains how to configure the Microsoft Exchange Server client.
You can begin a new message in Outlook 2010 by using any one of these methods:
With any mail folder open, choose New E-mail from the New group on the Home tab of the ribbon.
Click the New Items button and choose E-mail Message.
With any mail folder open (such as the Inbox), press Ctrl+N.
Outlook 2010 uses a native email editor that is based on Microsoft Word 2010. When you begin a new message, Outlook 2010 displays the Untitled Message form, shown in Figure 8-1.
The Outlook 2010 address books make it easy to address messages. When you want to send a message to someone whose address is stored in your Contacts folder or an address list on the server, you can click in the To box on the message form and type the recipient’s name—you don’t have to type the entire address. When you send the message, Outlook 2010 checks the name, locates the correct address, and adds it to the message. If multiple addresses match the name you specify, Outlook 2010 shows all the matches and prompts you to select the appropriate one. If you want to send a message to someone whose address isn’t in any of your address books, you need to type the full address in the To box.
Note
For more information about Outlook 2010 address books, see Chapter 6.
Note
Outlook 2010 can check the names and addresses of message recipients before you send the message. To perform this action, enter the names in the To box and either click the Check Names button on the ribbon or press Ctrl+K.
To open the address book (see Figure 8-2), click an Address Book button (To, Cc, or Bcc) beside an address box on the message form. Outlook 2010 opens the Select Names dialog box, which you can use to address the message.
Follow these steps to select addresses in this dialog box and add them to your message:
In the Address Book drop-down list, select the address list you want to view.
Select a name from the list, and click To, Cc, or Bcc to add the selected address to the specified address box.
Continue this process to add more recipients if necessary. Click OK when you’re satisfied with the list.
You can direct a single message to multiple recipients by including multiple addresses in the To box on the message form or by using the Cc (Carbon Copy) and Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy) boxes. The Cc box appears by default on message forms, but the Bcc box does not. To display the Bcc box, on the Options tab on the ribbon, in the Show Fields group, choose Bcc. You use the Cc and Bcc boxes the same way you use the To box: Type a name or address in the box, or click the Address Book icon beside the box to open the address book.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Hide addresses when necessary
The names contained in the To and Cc boxes of your message are visible to all recipients of the message. If you’re using a contact group or server-side distribution list, Outlook 2010 converts the names on the list to individual addresses, exposing those addresses to the recipients. If you want to hide the names of one or more recipients, or you don’t want distribution lists exposed, place those names in the Bcc box.
In some situations, you might want every outgoing message to be copied to a particular person. For example, maybe you manage a small staff and want all employees’ outgoing messages copied to you. Or perhaps you want to send a copy of all your outgoing messages to yourself at a separate email account.
Rules that you create with the Outlook 2010 Rules Wizard can process outgoing messages as well as incoming ones. One way to ensure that a recipient is copied on all outgoing messages is to add a rule that automatically adds the recipient to the message’s Cc field. Follow these steps to do so:
On the Home tab on the ribbon, click Rules in the Move group and choose Manage Rules and Alerts to begin creating the rule.
Click New Rule, in the Start From A Blank Rule group, select Apply Rule On Messages I Send, and then click Next.
Click Next again without choosing any conditions to cause the rule to be used for all messages. Click Yes in the warning dialog box to confirm that you want the rule applied to all messages.
Select the action Cc The Message To People Or Public Group; then click the underlined link in the Rule Description box and select the addresses where you want to send the carbon copies. These addresses can be from any of your address lists in the Address Book, or you can type in specific addresses.
Click Next, set exceptions as needed, and then click Next.
Supply a Name for the rule, verify that the Turn On This Rule check box is selected, and ensure that you are satisfied with the rule settings; then click Finish. Click OK to close the Rules And Alerts dialog box.
Note
For more details about working with message rules, see Chapter 11.
Note
Outlook might display a dialog box informing you that the rule you are creating is client-side only. For information on client-side rules, see the section Creating and Using Rules on page 302.
Unfortunately, Outlook 2010 doesn’t offer a Bcc action for the rule. The add-on Always BCC for Outlook 2010, available at www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook/Always-BCC.asp, enables you to add a Bcc recipient automatically. It is designed to work with the Outlook E-Mail Security Update for Outlook 2000 and the same features built into Outlook 2002 and later.
A rule is handy for copying all using, messages—or only certain messages—to one or more people, as explained in the preceding section. Contact groups and server-side distribution lists are handy for addressing a message to a group of people without entering the address for each person.
If you regularly send the same message to the same people but want to specify some on the To field, others in the Cc field, and still others in the Bcc field, contract groups and rules won’t do the trick. Instead, you can use a template or a custom form to send the message. You create the form or template ahead of time with the addresses in the desired fields; you then open that item, complete it, and send it on its way. Use the following steps to create and use a template for this purpose:
In Outlook 2010, start a new message.
Enter the email or distribution list addresses as needed in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields.
Enter any other information that remains the same each time you send the message, such as subject or boilerplate text in the body of the message.
Click File and then click Save As.
Choose Outlook Template from the Save As Type drop-down list.
Enter a name in the File Name field, and if you want to use a location other than your Templates folder, choose a path for the template.
Click Save to save the template.
Close the message form and click No if prompted to save changes.
When it’s time to create the message, click New Items on the Home tab of the ribbon, choose More Items, and select Choose Form to open the Choose Form dialog box (see Figure 8-3).
Choose User Templates In File System from the Look In drop-down list, choose the template that you created in step 7, and click Open.
Add any other recipients of message content and click Send to send the message.
Note
If you use the default Template folder for your templates, you don’t have to browse for them when you choose the User Templates In File System option.
Note
See Chapter 24, for more information on using templates in Outlook 2010, and Chapter 27, for details on creating and using custom forms.
By default, new messages have their priority set to Normal. You might want to change the priority to High for important or time-sensitive messages, or to Low for non–work mail or other messages that have relatively less importance. Outlook 2010 displays an icon in the Importance column of the recipient’s Inbox to indicate High or Low priority. (For messages with Normal priority, no icon is displayed.)
The easiest way to set message priority is by using the Message tab on the Ribbon in the message form. In the Tags group, click the High Importance button (which has an exclamation point icon) to specify High priority. Click the Low Importance button (which has a down arrow icon) to specify Low priority. To set the priority back to Normal, click the selected priority again to remove the highlight around the button (see Figure 8-4).
Figure 8-4. Outlook 2010 highlights the appropriate priority button to provide a visual indicator of the message’s priority.
You also can specify a message’s sensitivity by choosing a Normal (the default), Personal, Private, or Confidential sensitivity level. Setting sensitivity adds a tag to the message that displays the sensitivity level that you selected. This helps the recipient see at a glance how you want the message to be treated. To set sensitivity, on the Options tab on the ribbon, click the small Message Options button in the lower-right corner of the More Options group and select the sensitivity level from the Sensitivity drop-down list.
Although you can create some messages in a matter of seconds, others can take considerably longer—particularly if you’re using formatting or special features, or if you’re composing a lengthy message. If you’re interrupted while composing a message or if you simply want to leave the message to finish later, you can save the message in your Drafts folder. Later, when you have time, you can reopen the message, complete it, and send it. Click File and choose Save in the message form to have Outlook 2010 save the message to the Drafts folder (see Figure 8-5). When you’re ready to work on the message again, open the Drafts folder and double-click the message to open it.
You can configure various options that affect how Outlook 2010 sends email messages. To set these options, in the main Outlook window, click File, Options and then click Mail in the left pane (see Figure 8-6). Scroll down to find the Send Messages group of settings.
Note
For details on specifying which account is used to send a message, see the section Sending Messages Using a Specific Account, on page 174.
Figure 8-6. You can choose options for sending messages in the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box.
You can modify the following settings in the Send Messages group:
Default Importance Level This option sets the default importance or priority level for all new messages. When you compose a message, you can override this setting by clicking the High Importance button or the Low Importance button on the ribbon in the message form, or by clicking Message Options on the Options tab of the message form’s ribbon and setting the priority in the Properties dialog box. The default setting is Normal.
Default Sensitivity Level This option sets the default sensitivity level for all new messages. When you compose a message, you can override this setting by clicking Message Options on the ribbon and setting the sensitivity level in the Properties dialog box. The default setting is Normal.
Mark Messages As Expired After This Many Days This option causes the messages to expire after the specified number of days. The message appears in strikethrough in the recipient’s mailbox at that time. (This setting does not necessarily work with every email client.)
Commas Can Be Used To Separate Multiple Message Recipients If this check box is selected, you can use commas as well as semicolons in the To, Cc, and Bcc boxes of a message form to separate addresses.
Automatic Name Checking Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 attempt to match names to email addresses. Verified addresses are underlined, and those for which Outlook 2010 finds multiple matches are underscored by a red wavy line. When multiple matches exist and you’ve used a particular address before, Outlook 2010 underscores the name with a green dashed line to indicate that other choices are available.
Delete Meeting Requests And Notifications From Inbox After Responding Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 delete a meeting request from your Inbox when you respond to the request. If you accept the meeting, Outlook 2010 enters the meeting in your calendar. Clear this check box if you want to retain the meeting request in your Inbox.
Use Auto-Complete List To Suggest Names When Typing In The To, Cc, And Bcc Lines When this check box is selected, Outlook 2010 completes addresses as you type them in the To, Cc, and Bcc lines of the message form. Clear this check box to turn off this automatic completion. See Chapter 6 for more information on the address nickname cache and how to work with it.
Ctrl+Enter Sends A Message When this check box is selected, Outlook 2010 accepts Ctrl+Enter as the equivalent of clicking the Send button when composing a message.
Other options in the Outlook Options dialog box are explained in other parts of this book, including in the following sections.
To specify when Outlook 2010 should send messages, click File, Options, and click Advanced in the left pane to locate the Send Immediately When Connected option in the Send And Receive group. With this option selected, Outlook 2010 sends messages as soon as you click Send (provided that Outlook 2010 is online). If Outlook 2010 is offline, the messages go into the Outbox until you process them with a send/receive operation (which is also what happens if you do not select this option).
You can request a delivery receipt or a read receipt for any message. Both types of receipts are messages that are delivered back to you after you send your message. A delivery receipt indicates the date and time your message was delivered to the recipient’s mailbox. A read receipt indicates the date and time the recipient opened the message.
Specifying that you want a delivery receipt or read receipt for a message doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get one. The recipient’s mail server or mail client might not support delivery and read receipts. The recipient might have configured the email client to reject requests for receipts automatically, or the recipient might answer No when prompted to send a receipt. If you receive a receipt, it’s a good indication that the message was delivered or read. If you don’t receive a receipt, however, don’t assume that the message wasn’t delivered or read. A message receipt serves only as a positive notification, not a negative one.
To request receipts for a message you’re composing, click the Options tab on the Message ribbon. You’ll find the delivery and read receipt options in the Tracking group (see Figure 8-7).
You can set options to determine how Outlook 2010 handles delivery and read receipts by default. In the main Outlook window, click File, Options, and click Mail in the left pane. Scroll down to the Tracking group, shown in Figure 8-8, in which you’ll find the options discussed in this section.
The following options control how Outlook 2010 requests read receipts and how the receipts are processed after they are received:
Automatically Process Meeting Requests And Responses To Meeting Requests And Polls Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 process all message receipt requests and responses when they arrive.
After Updating Tracking Information, Move Receipt To Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 move receipts from the Inbox to the specified folder.
Read Receipt Confirming The Recipient Viewed The Message Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 request a read receipt for each message you send. When you compose a message, you can override this setting; to do so, click the Options button in the Options group of the Message ribbon.
Delivery Receipt Confirming The Message Was Delivered To The Recipient’s E-mail Server Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 request a delivery receipt for each message you send.
These three options in the Tracking group let you control how Outlook 2010 responds to requests from others for read receipts on messages that you receive and apply to Internet mail accounts only:
Always Send A Read Receipt When this option is selected, Outlook 2010 always sends a read receipt to any senders who request one. Outlook 2010 generates the read receipt when you open the message.
Never Send A Read Receipt Select this option to prevent Outlook 2010 from sending read receipts to senders who request them. Outlook 2010 will not prompt you regarding receipts.
Ask Each Time Whether To Send A Read Receipt Selecting this option enables you to control, on a message-by-message basis, whether Outlook 2010 sends read receipts. When you open a message for which the sender has requested a read receipt, Outlook 2010 prompts you to authorize the receipt. If you click Yes, Outlook 2010 generates and sends the receipt. If you click No, Outlook 2010 doesn’t create or send a receipt.
Note
If selected, the Update Tracking Information, And Then Delete Responses That Don’t Contain Comments check box causes Outlook 2010 to process voting and meeting requests and then delete them if they contain no comments.
Note
See the section Voting in Outlook, on page 962, to learn more about voting. See Chapter 19, to learn about the Calendar and scheduling meetings.
If you compose a message from Word 2010 (that is, if you started Word 2010 outside Outlook 2010), you have the ability to send the message as a document for review. You might use this feature if you’re collaborating on a document with others or incorporating their comments into the final draft. Recipients can review the document and add comments, which they send back to you. They also can incorporate the changes directly into the document, which enables them to take advantage of the Word 2010 revision marks (Track Changes) feature.
Before you can send a document for review, you must first add the Send For Review button to the Word 2010 Quick Access Toolbar. To do this, open the document in Word 2010, right-click the Quick Access Toolbar, and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar. In the Word Options dialog box, select Commands Not In The Ribbon in the Choose Commands From drop-down list. Select Send For Review and click Add; then click OK. In the document, make sure you have saved the document, click the Send For Review button, and then address and send the email message as usual.
When you reply to a message, Outlook 2010 sends your reply to the person who sent you the message. Replying to a message is simple: select the message in the Inbox, and then click the Reply button on the Home tab on the ribbon; right-click the message and choose Reply; or press Ctrl+R. Outlook 2010 opens a message form and, depending on how you have configured Outlook 2010 for replies, can also include the original message content in various formats.
If the message to which you’re replying was originally sent to multiple recipients, and you want to send your reply to all of them, click Reply To All; right-click and choose Reply To All; or press Ctrl+Shift+R.
Note
For more information about message replies, see the section Using Other Reply and Forwarding Options on page 195.
Note
When you use Reply All, Outlook 2010 places all the addresses in the To box. If you don’t want the recipients list to be visible, use the Bcc box to send blind carbon copies. To do this, click Reply All, highlight the addresses in the To box, and cut them. Then click in the Bcc box and paste the addresses there.
In addition to replying to a message, you can forward the message to one or more recipients. To forward a message, select the message header in the message folder (the Inbox or another one), and then click Forward in the Respond group on the Home tab of the ribbon or press Ctrl+F. Outlook 2010 opens a new message form and either incorporates the original message in the body of the current one or attaches it to the new message.
If you forward a single message, Outlook 2010 forwards the original message in the body of your new message by default, and you can add your own comments. If you prefer, however, you can configure Outlook 2010 to forward messages as attachments instead of including them in the body of your messages.
Note
If you select multiple messages and click Forward, Outlook 2010 sends the messages as attachments instead of including them in the body of your message.
If you want to forward a single message as an attachment without reconfiguring the default behavior of Outlook, you can do so easily. Just click the message to select it, click the More Respond Options button in the Respond group of the Home tab, and then choose Forward As Attachment.
You can change how Outlook 2010 handles and formats message replies and forwarded messages. These options are found in the Replies And Forwards group on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box, shown in Figure 8-9.
Figure 8-9. You can set options for message replies and forwarded messages on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box.
To open this dialog box, click File, Options; then click Mail. You can then view or set the following options in the Replies And Forwards group that affect replies and forwards:
Close Original Message Windows When Replying Or Forwarding Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 close the message form when you click Reply or Forward. Clear this check box to have Outlook 2010 leave the message form open. If you frequently forward the same message with different comments to different recipients, it’s useful to have Outlook 2010 leave the message open so that you don’t have to open it again to perform the next forward.
When Replying To A Message Use this drop-down list to specify how Outlook 2010 handles the original message text when you reply to a message. You can choose to have Outlook 2010 generate a clean reply without the current message text, include the text without changes, or include but indent the text, for example. Note that you can either include the original message text in the body of your reply or add it to the message as an attachment.
When Forwarding A Message Use this drop-down list to specify how Outlook 2010 handles the original message text when you forward a message. You can, for example, include the message in the body of the forwarded message or add it as an attachment.
Preface Each Line In A Plain-Text Message With If you select the Prefix Each Line Of The Original Message option in the When Replying To A Message drop-down list or the When Forwarding A Message drop-down list, you can use this box to specify the character that Outlook 2010 uses to preface each line of the original message in the body of the reply or forwarded message. The default is an angle bracket (>) and a space, but you can use one or more characters of your choice.
Preface Comments With Select this check box and enter a name or other text in the associated box. Outlook 2010 will add the specified text to mark your typed comments in the body of a message that you are replying to or forwarding.
Note
For more details on replying to and forwarding messages, see the sections Replying to Messages and Forwarding Messages earlier in this chapter.
When you delete messages from any folder other than the Deleted Items folder, the messages are moved to the Deleted Items folder. You can then recover the messages by moving them to other folders, if needed. When Outlook 2010 deletes messages from the Deleted Items folder, however, those messages are deleted from Outlook 2010 permanently.
You can set Outlook 2010 to delete all messages from the Deleted Items folder automatically whenever you exit the program, which helps keep the size of your message store manageable. However, it also means that unless you recover a deleted message before you exit Outlook 2010, that message is irretrievably lost. If you seldom have to recover deleted files, this might not be a problem for you.
To change what happens to items in the Deleted Items folder when you exit Outlook 2010, click File, Options, and then click Advanced in the left pane. Select or clear Empty Deleted Items Folders When Exiting Outlook, and then click OK.
Exchange Server mailboxes have a retention period, defined by the Exchange Server administrator, which causes deleted items to be retained for a certain period of time after you have deleted them permanently from your Deleted Items folder. To recover a deleted item, in the Navigation pane, click any folder in your Exchange Server mailbox, and then click the Folder tab on the ribbon. Click Recover Deleted Items from the Clean Up group to open the Recover Deleted Items dialog box (see Figure 8-10). Click the item that you want to recover and click Recover Selected Items.
Figure 8-10. You can undelete items from an Exchange Server mailbox if they have not aged past the retention period.
Unfortunately, there is no way to recover permanently deleted items from non–Exchange Server accounts.
Outlook 2010 uses send and receive groups (or send/receive groups) to control when messages are sent and received for specific email accounts. You can also use send/receive groups to define the types of items that Outlook 2010 synchronizes. Synchronization is the process in which Outlook 2010 synchronizes the local copy of your folders with your Exchange Server message store. For example, assume that while you were working offline, you created several new email messages and scheduled a few events. You connect to the computer running Exchange Server and perform a synchronization. Outlook 2010 uploads to your computer the changes you made locally and also downloads changes from the server to your local store, such as downloading messages that have been delivered to your Inbox on the server.
Send/receive groups enable you to be flexible in controlling which functions Outlook 2010 performs for synchronization. For example, you can set up a send/receive group for your Exchange Server account that synchronizes only your Inbox, not your other folders, for those times when you simply want to perform a quick check of your mail.
Send/receive groups also are handy for helping you manage different types of accounts. For example, if you integrate your personal and work email into a single profile, you can use send/receive groups to control when each type of mail is processed. You might create one send/receive group for your personal accounts and another for your work accounts. You can also use send/receive groups to limit network traffic to certain times of the day. For example, if your organization limits Internet connectivity to specific times, you could use send/receive groups to schedule your Internet accounts to synchronize during the allowed times.
Think of send/receive groups as a way to collect various accounts into groups and assign to each group specific send/receive and synchronization behavior. You can create multiple send/receive groups, and you can include the same account in multiple groups if needed.
To set up or modify send/receive groups in Outlook 2010, click the Send/Receive tab on the ribbon, click Send/Receive Groups, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups. Outlook 2010 displays the Send/Receive Groups dialog box, shown in Figure 8-11. By default, Outlook 2010 sets up one group named All Accounts and configures it to send and receive when online and offline. You can modify or remove that group, add others, and configure other send/receive behavior in the Send/Receive Groups dialog box.
When you select a group from the Group Name list, Outlook 2010 displays the following associated settings in the Setting For Group area of the dialog box:
Include This Group In Send/Receive (F9) Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 process accounts in the selected group when you click Send/Receive on the message form toolbar or press F9. Outlook 2010 provides this option for both online and offline behavior.
Schedule An Automatic Send/Receive Every n Minutes Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 check the accounts in the selected group every n minutes (the default is 30 minutes). Outlook 2010 provides this option for both online and offline behavior.
Perform An Automatic Send/Receive When Exiting Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 process the accounts in the selected group when you exit Outlook 2010 from an online session.
Although you could modify the All Accounts group to process only selected accounts, it’s better to create other groups as needed and leave All Accounts as is for those times when you want to process all your email accounts together.
Follow these steps to create a new group:
In Outlook 2010, click the Send/Receive tab on the ribbon, click Send/Receive Groups, Define Send/Receive Groups.
Click New, type the name of the group as you want it to appear on the Send/Receive submenu, and click OK. Outlook 2010 displays the Send/Receive Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 8-12.
In the Accounts bar on the left, click the account you want to configure. By default, all accounts in the group are excluded from synchronization, as indicated by the red X on the account icon.
Select the Include The Selected Account In This Group check box to activate the remaining options in the dialog box and to have the account included when you process messages for the selected group.
In the Select Folders From The Selected Account To Include In Send/Receive list, select the check box beside each folder that you want Outlook 2010 to synchronize when processing this group.
Select other settings, using the following list as a guide:
Send Mail Items Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 send outgoing mail for this account when a send/receive action occurs for the group.
Receive Mail Items Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 retrieve incoming mail for this account when a send/receive action occurs for the group.
Make Folder Home Pages Available Offline This check box has Outlook 2010 cache folder home pages offline so that they are available to you any time.
Synchronize Forms Select this check box to have Outlook 2010 synchronize changes to forms that have been made locally as well as changes that have been made on the server.
Download Offline Address Book When this check box is selected, Outlook 2010 updates the offline address book when a send/receive action occurs for the group.
Get Folder Unread Count For IMAP accounts only; you can select this option to have Outlook 2010 get the number of unread messages from the server.
If you need to apply filters or message size limits, do so. Otherwise, click OK, and then click Close to close the Send/Receive Groups dialog box.
Note
For information on how to apply message size limits, see the section Limiting Message Size, on this page.
Other options for the send/receive group are explained in the following sections.
You can modify existing send/receive groups in much the same way you create new ones. Click the Send/Receive tab on the ribbon, click Send/Receive Groups, Define Send/Receive Groups. Select the group you want to modify and click Edit. The settings that you can modify are the same as those discussed in the preceding section.
You can also use the Send/Receive Settings dialog box to specify a limit on message size for messages downloaded from the Inbox of the selected account. This provides an easy way to control large messages that arrive in your mailbox. Instead of downloading messages that are larger than the specified limit, Outlook 2010 downloads only the headers. You can then mark the messages for download or deletion, or simply double-click the message to download and open it.
Note
Specifying a message size limit in the Send/Receive Settings dialog box doesn’t affect the size of messages that you can receive on the server. It simply directs Outlook 2010 to process them differently.
Follow these steps to specify a message size limit for an account:
Open the Send/Receive Groups dialog box as described previously.
Select a group to modify and click Edit.
From the Accounts bar, select the account containing the folder for which you want to set a message size limit.
Select a folder, as shown in Figure 8-13 (not available for POP3 accounts).
Specify the criteria that you want to use to limit message download, based on the following option list, and click OK:
Download Headers Only Download only the message header, not the message body or attachments.
Download Complete Item Including Attachments Download the entire message, including body and attachments.
Download Only Headers For Items Larger Than Download only headers for messages over the specified size.
Note
For details on processing headers for POP3 accounts, see the section Working with Message Headers on page 401.
You can schedule synchronization for each send/receive group separately, giving you quite a bit of control over when Outlook 2010 processes your Inbox, Outbox, and other folders for synchronization. You can configure Outlook 2010 to process each send/receive group on a periodic basis and to process specific groups when you exit Outlook 2010. For example, you might schedule the All Accounts group to synchronize only when you exit Outlook 2010, even if you scheduled a handful of other groups to process messages more frequently during the day. Because you can create as many groups as needed and can place the same account in multiple groups, you have a good deal of flexibility in determining when each account is processed.
Note
For a discussion of Cached Exchange Mode, see Chapter 41.
Follow these steps to configure synchronization for each send/receive group:
Open the Send/Receive Settings dialog box.
In the Send/Receive Groups dialog box, select the group for which you want to modify the schedule.
In the Setting For Group area, select Schedule An Automatic Send/Receive Every n Minutes, and then specify the number of minutes that should elapse between send/receive events for the selected group. Set this option for both online and offline behavior.
If you want the group to be processed when you exit Outlook 2010, select Perform An Automatic Send/Receive When Exiting.
You can use a combination of scheduled and manually initiated send/receive events to process messages and accounts. For example, you can specify in the Send/Receive Group dialog box that a given group (such as All Accounts) must be included when you click Send/Receive or press F9 and then configure other accounts to process as scheduled. Thus, some accounts might process only when you manually initiate the send/receive event, and others might process only by automatic execution. In addition, you can provide an overlap so that a specific account processes manually as well as by schedule—simply include the account in multiple groups with the appropriate settings for each group.
On occasion, you might want to disable scheduled send/receive events altogether. For example, assume that you’re working offline and don’t have a connection through which you can check your accounts. In that situation, you can turn off scheduled send/receive processing until a connection can be reestablished.
To disable scheduled send/receive processing, click Send/Receive Groups on the ribbon and choose Disable Scheduled Send/Receive. Select this command again to enable the scheduled processing.
This section of the chapter provides an explanation of additional options in Outlook 2010 that control messaging features and tasks. You can specify how you want to be notified when new mail arrives, configure how Outlook 2010 connects for email accounts that use dial-up networking, and control the formatting of Internet and international email messages.
You might not spend a lot of time in Outlook 2010 during the day if you’re busy working with other applications. However, you might want Outlook 2010 to notify you when you receive new messages. Outlook 2010 offers severalfeatures Desktop Alert features to provide you with notification of the arrival of new messages. These options and additional notification options are located in the Message Arrival group on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box (see Figure 8-14):
Play A Sound Select this option to have Outlook 2010 play a sound when a new message arrives. By using the Change System Sounds option in Control Panel, you can change the New Mail Notification sound to use a .wav file of your choosing.
Briefly Change The Mouse Pointer Select this option to have Outlook 2010 briefly change the pointer to a mail symbol when a new message arrives.
Show An Envelope Icon In The Taskbar Select this option to have Outlook 2010 place an envelope icon in the system tray when new mail arrives. You can double-click the envelope icon to open your mail. The icon disappears from the tray after you have read the messages.
Display A Desktop Alert Enable this option to have Outlook 2010 display a pop-up window on the desktop when a new message arrives.
Tip
Outlook 2010 can display a desktop alert for new messages that arrive for any account, not just for the default Inbox.
If you enable this last option, click Desktop Alert Settings to display the Desktop Alert Settings dialog box (see Figure 8-15). In this dialog box, you specify the length of time the alert remains on the desktop and the alert’s transparency value. Click Preview to preview the alert.
If you enable the Display A, Outlook 2010 displays the alert for each new message. If you receive a lot of mail during the day, that’s more than you need. Instead, you probably want Outlook 2010 to alert you only when you receive certain messages, such as those from people in your Contacts folder, from a specific sender, or with certain words in the subject. So instead of enabling this option globally, you might prefer to create a rule that causes the alert to be displayed when the rule fires.
There are two rule actions that you can use to generate alerts:
Display A Desktop Alert This action causes Outlook 2010 to display a desktop alert when the rule fires. The alert persists on the desktop for the period of time you have set for the alert on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box.
Display A Specific Message In The New Item Alert Window With this action, you can specify a message that appears in the New Item Alerts window (see Figure 8-16). The window persists on the desktop until you close it.
Which action you use depends on whether you want a custom message to appear for the alert and whether you want the alert to persist until you close it or appear and then go away. To create an alert rule using one (or both) of these actions, create the rule as you would any other and select the alert action that you want to use.
Note
To create a rule that displays a New Item Alert, you can use the rule template Display Mail From Someone in the New Item Alert Window.
Note
For more details about working with message rules, see Chapter 11.
If you create an alert rule that uses the Display A Desktop Alert action, it’s likely that you will not want Outlook 2010 to display an alert for all messages. Open the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box as described previously, and then clear the Display A Desktop Alert option. If you use the Display A Specific Message In The New Item Alert Window rule, you might want to leave desktop alerts enabled, which causes Outlook 2010 to display a desktop alert for all messages and to display the New Item Alerts window for those messages that fire the rule.
Tip
If enabled, the Enable Preview For Rights Protected Messages option in the Message Arrival group causes Outlook to display a preview of rights-protected content (that is, content that is restricted in some way, such as preventing printing or forwarding).
Chapter 43, discusses mobile features in detail, but mobile alerts bear mention in this section. To open the Rules And Alerts dialog box, click the Home tab, click Rules, and choose Manage Rules And Alerts. Click New Rule, and note that in the Stay Up To Date group, there is a rule template that will send an alert to your mobile device when you receive messages from a specified person. You can use this rule template to generate a mobile alert for any type of mail account, although you must add a contact for yourself in the Contacts folder and make sure to include your mobile number in the Mobile field. You can then select yourself as the recipient for the alert in the rule.
Users of Exchange Server have a different option for generating mobile alerts. To see these options, click File, Account Settings, and Manage Mobile Notifications. Outlook opens a web browser to connect to Exchange Server. Log in, click the Phone link in the left pane, click Text Messaging, and then use the links on the page to set calendar and email notification settings. For more details on using this feature, see Chapter 43.
Using the Outlook 2010 email features effectively requires more than understanding how to send and receive messages. This section of the chapter helps you get your messages and attachments under control.
You can configure Outlook 2010 to save messages automatically in several ways—for example, saving the current message periodically or saving a copy of forwarded messages. You’ll find the following options on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box (see Figure 8-17):
Automatically Save Items That Have Not Been Sent After This Many Minutes Use this check box to have Outlook 2010 save unsent messages in the Drafts folder. Outlook 2010 by default saves unsent messages to the Drafts folder every three minutes. Clear this check box if you don’t want unsent messages saved in this folder.
Save To This Folder Specify the folder in which you want Outlook 2010 to save unsent items. The default location is the Drafts folder.
When Replying To A Message That Is Not In The Inbox, Save The Reply In The Same Folder With this check box selected, Outlook 2010 saves a copy of sent items to the Sent Items folder if the message originates from the Inbox (new message, reply, or forward). If the message originates from a folder other than the Inbox—such as a reply to a message stored in a different folder—Outlook 2010 saves the reply in the same folder as the original. If this option is cleared, Outlook 2010 saves all sent items in the Sent Items folder.
Note
You can also use rules to control where Outlook 2010 places messages. For more information on creating and using rules, see Chapter 11.
Save Forwarded Messages Select this check box to save a copy of all messages that you forward. Messages are saved in either the Sent Items folder or the originating folder, depending on how you set the previous option.
Save Copies of Messages In The Sent Items Folder Select this option to have Outlook save a copy of all new messages and replies that you send in the Sent Items folder (see the following section).
Use Unicode Format Select this option to have Outlook store the saved messages in Unicode format.
Keeping track of the messages you send can often be critical, particularly in a work setting. Fortunately, with Outlook 2010, you can automatically retain a copy of each message you send, providing a record of when and to whom you sent the message.
By default, Outlook 2010 stores a copy of each sent message in the Sent Items folder. You can open this folder and sort the items to locate messages based on any message criteria. You can view, forward, move, and otherwise manage the contents of Sent Items just as you can with other folders.
If you allow Outlook 2010 to save a copy of messages in the Sent Items folder, over time the sheer volume of messages can overwhelm your system. You should therefore implement a means—whether manual or automatic—to archive or clear out the contents of the Sent Items folder. With the manual method, all you need to do is move or delete messages from the folder as your needs dictate.
Note
If you want to automate the archival process, you can do so; for details on how to archive messages from any folder automatically, see the section Managing Data on page 756.
You’ll find the Save Copies Of Messages In The Sent Items Folder option on the Mail page of the Outlook Options dialog box, as described in the previous section. Select this option to have Outlook store copies of sent items in that folder.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Overriding default message-saving settings
If you need to change the Outlook 2010 behavior for a single message, you can override the setting. To choose the folder in which you want to save a message, with the message form open, on the Options tab, in the More Options group, click Save Sent Item To, click Other Folder, and then select the folder in which Outlook 2010 should save the message. If you normally save sent messages but do not want to keep a copy of this message, choose Do Not Save from the menu.
It’s a sure bet that some of the messages you receive include attachments such as documents, pictures, or applications. Outlook 2010 has an attachment preview feature, which enables you to preview many types of files that you receive in email. In general, you can work with these attachments in Outlook 2010 without saving them separately to disk, although you can do so if needed.
Attachment preview is a feature of Outlook 2010 that enables you to view the contents of files sent to you in email. You can preview some attachments in the Reading pane. Outlook 2010 comes with previewers for a variety of file types, including Office 2010 applications, web pages, and Microsoft Windows Media Player, as well as images and text files. Some vendors also make additional file previewers available for download at their websites.
To preview a file attachment, follow these steps:
In Outlook 2010, with the message selected, click the attachment in the Reading pane.
If the attachment type has a preview handler registered, Outlook 2010 displays a preview of the attachment (see Figure 8-18). If there is no preview handler for the attachment file type, Outlook 2010 displays a message indicating this. To view a file for which there is no previewer installed, save the file to disk and open it with the appropriate application.
There are limitations on attachment preview, including the following:
You can preview attachments in HTML and plain text messages, but not those in rich text messages (because of the way the attachments are embedded in rich text messages).
For security reasons, active content (such as macros, scripts, and ActiveX controls) in the attached files is disabled.
You can configure how attachment previews are handled using the Trust Center. To choose attachment-previewing options, follow these steps:
With Outlook 2010 open, click File, Options, Trust Center, and click Trust Center Settings.
In Trust Center, select Attachment Handling.
To enable sending replies with edited attachments, select Add Properties To Attachments To Enable Reply With Changes.
If you do not want to be able to preview attachments, select Turn Off Attachment Preview.
To manage individual previewers, click Attachment And Document Previewers to open the File Previewing Options dialog box (see Figure 8-19). Select all the previewers that you want enabled and clear the check box of any previewer you want to disable. Click OK.
When you are satisfied with the attachment previewing configuration, click OK to close the Trust Center.
You might want to view an attachment in the application in which it was created, perhaps to display content that is disabled by the previewer. There are three ways to open a file in the external application directly from Outlook 2010:
Right-click the attachment, either in the Reading pane or the open message, and choose Open.
Double-click the attachment, either in the Reading pane or the open message.
In either case, if the attachment is an Office document that originated outside your network (and the associated application is installed), Outlook 2010 opens the document using Protected View, discussed in Chapter 2. Protected View uses a rights-limited sandbox instance of the application to reduce the potential for virus infection from the attachment. Editing and other features are disabled, but you can view the document. To edit the document, click the Enable Editing button on the application’s InfoBar (see Figure 8-20). If the document came from inside your network, such as from another mailbox in your same Exchange Server environment, it does not use Protected View, but simply opens the document for editing (or in read-only mode, depending on the document).
Figure 8-20. Outlook 2010 opens Office documents in Protected View if those documents originated outside your network (such as from the Internet).
For non-Office applications, Outlook either simply opens the document in its associated application or displays the Open With dialog box (see Figure 8-21), depending on how your computer is configured.
In many instances, it’s necessary to save attachments to a disk. For example, you might receive a self-extracting executable containing a program that you need to install. In that case, the best option is to save the file to disk and install it from there.
Caution
It’s important to have antivirus protection installed on your computer to protect against viruses from a variety of potential sources, including email attachments. Saving an attachment to disk before opening it enables the antivirus application on your computer to scan the file before you open it. Make sure your antivirus solution is configured to scan files as soon as they are added to disk when they are accessed so you don’t have to manually scan them each time.
You can save attachments using either of these methods:
If you’re using the Reading pane, right-click the attachment in the message and choose Save As.
Click File, Save Attachments if you want to save one or more attachments or if the Reading pane is not available. You can also do this by right-clicking an attachment and choosing Save All Attachments. This option is handy when you want to save all attachments.
Although Outlook 2010 maintains your messages in your stored folders, occasionally you might need to save a message to a file. For example, you might want to archive a single message or a selection of messages outside Outlook 2010 or save a message to include as an attachment in another document. You can save a single message to a file or combine several messages into a single file.
To save one or more messages, open the Outlook 2010 folder in which the messages reside, and then select the message headers. Click File, Save As; then specify the path, file name, and file format. Click Save to save the message.
When you save a single message, Outlook 2010 gives you the option of saving it in one of the following formats:
Text Only Save the message as a text file, losing any formatting in the original message.
Outlook Template Save the message as an Outlook 2010 template that you can use to create other messages.
Outlook Message Format Save the message in MSG format, retaining all formatting and attachments within the message file.
Outlook Message Format–Unicode Save the message in MSG format with the Unicode character set.
HTML Save the message in HTML format, storing the images in a folder that you can view with a web browser.
MHT Files Save the message in MIME HTML (MHT) format as a single file with all its resources (such as images).
When you save a selection of messages, you can store the messages only in a text file, and Outlook 2010 combines the body of the selected messages in that text file. You can then concatenate the various messages (that is, join them sequentially) into a single text file. You might use this capability, for example, to create a message thread from a selection of messages.
Managing your messages often includes moving them to other folders. For example, if you’re working on multiple projects, you might want to store the messages related to each specific project in the folder created for that project. The easiest method for moving a message between folders is to drag the message from its current location to the new location. If you want to copy a message instead of moving it, right-click the message, drag it to the folder, and then choose Copy.
If you can’t see both the source and destination folders in the folder list, or if you prefer not to drag the message, you can use a different method of moving or copying. Select the message in the source folder, click Move on the Home tab of the ribbon, and choose Other Folder. Outlook 2010 displays a dialog box in which you select the destination folder (see Figure 8-22). Select the folder and click OK.
Outlook keeps track of the last 10 folders to which you moved messages and displays that list on the ribbon when you click Move (see Figure 8-21). You can simply choose a folder from the list to move the message or messages to that folder.
Tip
If you find yourself working with a handful of folders frequently, add them to your Favorites in the Navigation pane. That way, you can simply drag the item to the folder in the Favorites group. To add a folder to Favorites, right-click the folder in the Navigation pane and choose Show In Favorites.
Note
You can use the shortcut menu to move a message to a specified folder by right-clicking the message and choosing Move, Other Folder from the resulting context menu.
You can copy messages to other folders using the ribbon in much the same way that you move them. Just click the message or messages, then click Move on the ribbon and choose Copy To Folder. Choose the folder and click OK.