10 Minute Guide to Outlook 97 - 6 - Managing Mail In this lesson, you learn to delete and undelete messages, forward messages, and organize messages by saving them to folders. Deleting Mail You may want to store some important messages, but you'll definitely want to delete much of the mail you receive. Once you've answered a question or responded to a request, you probably won't have need for a reminder of that transaction. You can easily delete messages in Outlook when you're finished with them. To delete a mail message that is open, do one of the following: Choose Edit, Delete. Press Ctrl+D. Click the Delete button on the toolbar. If you have modified the message in any way, a confirmation message appears from the Office Assistant or as a message dialog box. Otherwise, the message is deleted without warning. If you're in the Inbox and you want to delete one or more messages from the message list, select the single message to delete (or hold down Ctrl and click each message). Then do one of the following: Press the Delete key. Click the Delete button on the toolbar. Undeleting Items If you change your mind and want to get back items you've deleted, you can usually retrieve them from the Deleted Items folder. By default, when you delete an item, it doesn't disappear from your system; it merely moves to the Deleted Items folder. Items stay in the Deleted Items folder until you delete them from that folder--at which point they are unrecoverable. To retrieve a deleted item from the Deleted Items folder, follow these steps: 1. Click the Deleted Items icon in the Outlook Bar to open the folder. 2. Select the items you want to retrieve and drag them to the folder containing the same type of items on the Outlook Bar. Alternatively, you can choose Edit, Move to Folder and choose the folder to which you want to move the selected items and click OK. Emptying the Deleted Items Folder If you're really sure you want to delete the items in the Deleted Items folder, you can erase them from your system. To delete items in the Deleted Items folder, follow these steps: 1. In the Outlook Bar, choose the Outlook group and then select the Deleted Items folder. All deleted items in that folder appear in the message list, as shown in Figure 6.1. 2. To permanently delete an item, select it in the Deleted Items folder and click the Delete tool button or choose Edit, Delete. (You can choose more than one item at a time by holding the Shift or Ctrl key as you click the items.) 3. Outlook displays a confirmation dialog box asking if you're sure you want to permanently delete the message. Choose Yes to delete the selected item. 4. To switch back to the Inbox or another folder, select the folder from either the Outlook Bar or the Folders List. Figure 6.1 Deleted messages remain in the Deleted Items folder until you permanently delete them. Timesaver Tip: Automatic Permanent Delete You can set Outlook to permanently delete the contents of the Deleted Items folder every time you exit the program. To do so, choose Tools, Options and click the General tab. In the General Settings area, select Empty the Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting and click OK. Forwarding Mail Suppose you want to forward mail you receive from a coworker to another person who has an interest in the message. You can for-ward any message you receive, and you can even add comments to the message if you want. Plain English: Forward Mail When you forward mail, you send a message you received to another person on the network; you can add your own comments to the forwarded mail if you want. You forward an open message or a message selected in the message list in the Inbox in the same way. To forward mail, follow these steps: 1. Select or open the message you want to forward. Then click the Forward button or choose Compose, Forward. The FW Message dialog box appears (see Figure 6.2). Figure 6.2 When you forward a message, the original message appears at the bottom of the message window. 2. In the To text box, enter the names of the people to whom you want to forward the mail. (If you want to choose a person's name from a list, click the To... button to display the Select Names dialog box, and then select the person's name.) Lesson 7 explains more about using the Address Book. If you enter multiple names in the To box, separate the names with a semi-colon and a space. 3. (Optional) In the Cc text box, enter the names of anyone to whom you want to forward copies of the message (or click the Cc... button and choose the name from the list that appears). 4. In the message area of the window, enter any message you want to send with the forwarded text. The text you type will be a different color. 5. Click the Send button or choose File, Send. Saving Mail to a Folder Although you'll delete some mail after you read and respond to it, you'll want to save other messages for future reference. You can save a message to any folder you want, but you should use a log-ical filing system to ensure that you'll be able find each message again later. Outlook offers several methods for organizing your mail. The easiest method of saving mail to a folder is to move it to one of Outlook's built-in Mail folders (as described in Lesson 3). You can use any of the folders to store your mail, or you can create new folders. Lesson 11, "Organizing Messages," describes how to create your own folders within Outlook. To move messages to an existing folder, follow these steps: 1. Select one message (by clicking it) or select multiple messages (by Ctrl+clicking). Timesaver Tip: Making Backup Copies You can also copy a message to another folder as a backup. To do so, choose Edit, Copy to Folder. 2. Choose Edit, Move to Folder or click the Move to Folder tool button on the toolbar. The Move Items dialog box appears (see Figure 6.3). 3. Select the folder you want to move the item to and click OK. Outlook moves the item to the folder for you. To view the message(s) you've moved, choose the folder from the Outlook Bar or the Folders List. Then click the item you want to view. Figure 6.3 Choose the folder to which you want to move the selected message(s). In this lesson, you learned to forward messages, delete messages, and organize messages by saving them to folders. In the next lesson, you will learn to work with address books.

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