How do I search, manage and cleanup my Outlook mailbox?

Outlook’s search box is a powerful tool to help you find messages, contacts, tasks, and calendar entries. 

You can type a number of phrases in the Search box at the top of the Outlook window. In addition to searching for different words and phrases, you can use various operators and keywords to narrow your search results.

The Clean Up command is a quick and effortless way to reduce redundant emails. A “Conversation” in Outlook is essentially an email thread starting from the first email sent out down to the last reply.

When you hit the “Clean Up” button, messages that are already contained within one of the replies are deleted, thus reducing redundant messages. This feature can reduce your inbox messages by 35% quickly and efficiently without deleting anything you might need. Microsoft recommends keeping under 5,000 messages.

Information Technology utilizes Proofpoint, which is an enhanced email monitoring software tool, that better protects your Northwood University inbox from spam, malware, and viruses. This tool also places junk emails and advertisements in a “Low Priority Inbox” folder.

Click here to learn how to report suspicious messages and or move low priority emails to your inbox.

Everything just deleted winds up in this folder. Deleting them here will get rid of these messages permanently, finally giving you the space you need! The process to empty the Deleted Items folder is the same as emptying other folders, simply right-click and select “Empty Folder”.

To keep an inbox free of clutter, consider organizing your attachments (anything from images and videos to documents and spreadsheets) by saving them to Perceptive Content or OneDrive instead of keeping them in Outlook.