If you have the latest version of Office Pro Plus, a great new feature is now available. It is called Outlook Conversational View – (not to be confused with “Show as Conversation” setting). Check the View tab in Outlook. Conversational view is useful for managing long mail trails.
When you click on this button, the menu options reduce and the Reading Pane is automatically activated. Don’t worry. If you do not like it, just click on Classic button.
Contents
Outlook Conversational View =
Chat like Mail trail
We are used to chatting. Latest message at the bottom and earlier on the top. That is exactly what the Reading pane shows you – Latest response at the bottom and earliest at the top.
Of course, you can reply to the mail conversation just like you would in a chat conversation.
All attachments in one place
Amazing feature. Outlook Conversation View reading pane shows a dropdown listing all attachments which were a part of the entire conversation. Here is an example of a long mail trail which went on for 2 months with seven attachments!
The technical name for this feature is – Attachment Rollup.
Attachment options
Have a look. You may find some surprisingly useful options here. The attachments are shown as a single list. But each one may have originated at different stages of the mail trail. That is why Scroll to Message is a brilliant feature of Outlook Conversational View.
Save to OneDrive
As you already know by now, storing files on My Documents is a bad idea when you have OneDrive available. That is why Microsoft is strongly suggesting that you use OneDrive. Even this feature is more refined that you would expect. It includes personal as well as business version of OneDrive as well as Office 365 groups.
Recommended usage
There is no need to CHOOSE between Classic and Conversational view as an overall decision. You should change the view based upon the kind of email you are viewing. Ideally, put both buttons in Quick Access Toolbar for ease of use.
Here are more articles about using Outlook to your advantage.
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