10 Minute Guide to Outlook 97 - 11 - Organizing Messages In this lesson, you learn to view sent items, create folders, and move items to a new folder. Viewing Sent Items and Changing Defaults By default, Outlook saves a copy of all mail messages you send. It keeps these copies in the Sent Items folder, which is part of the Mail group of the Outlook Bar. You can view a list of sent items at any time, and you can open any message in that list to review its contents. Viewing Sent Items To view sent items, follow these steps: 1. In the Outlook Bar, choose the Mail group. Timesaver Tip: Save time You can select the Sent Items folder from the Folder List instead of following steps 1-3. 2. If necessary, scroll to the Sent Items folder. 3. Click the Sent Items icon, and Outlook displays a list of the contents of that folder. Figure 11.1 shows the Sent Items list. All messages you send remain in the Sent Items folder until you delete or move them. 4. (Optional) To view a sent item, double-click it to open it. When you finish with it, click the Close (X) button. Figure 11.1 You can open any sent message by double- clicking it. Changing Sent Items Defaults You can control how Outlook saves copies of your sent messages. To change the default settings for the Sent Items folder, follow these steps: 1. Choose Tools, Options, and the Options dialog box appears. 2. Click the Sending tab. 3. Choose one or all of the following options (located near the bottom of the dialog box): Save Copies of Messages in "Sent Items" Folder When this is checked, Outlook saves copies of all sent messages to the specified folder. (When the check box is empty, no copies of messages are saved automatically.) In Folders Other Than the Inbox, Save Replies with Original Message When this is checked, Outlook saves replies to messages in the same folder in which you store the original message. (When the check box is empty, it saves replies to the Sent Items folder as long as you've checked the previous check box.) Save Forwarded Message When this is checked, Outlook saves a copy of each forwarded message you send. 4. Click OK to close the dialog box. Panic Button: Too Much Mail! If you save all the mail you receive and send, you may accumulate so much mail that you run the risk of running out of disk space. You can and should periodically delete mail from the Sent Items folder by selecting the mail and pressing the Delete key; you'll also need to remove the deleted mail from the Deleted Items folder. See Lesson 6, "Managing Mail," for more informa-tion. Alternatively, you can create an archive file of the messages you've sent. The archive enables you to save items on disk or elsewhere on the system. See Lesson 22, "Archiving Items," for details. Creating Folders You'll likely want to organize your mail in various folders to make storing items and finding them more efficient. You can create folders within Outlook that make it easier to manage your mail and other items in Outlook. To create a folder, follow these steps: 1. Choose File, Folder, Create Subfolder. The Create New Folder dialog box appears (see Figure 11.2). Figure 11.2 Create folders to organize your mail and other items. 2. In the Name text box, enter a name for the folder. 3. Click the Folder Contains drop-down arrow, and choose the type of items the folder will store: Mail, Appointments, Contact, Journal, Note, or Task. 4. In the Make This Folder a Subfolder Of list, choose the folder in which you want to create the new folder. You can, for example, make the new folder a subfolder of Personal Folders so that it appears in lists with all of the Outlook folders. Or you might want to make it a subfolder of Sent Mail. 5. (Optional) In the Description text box, add a comment or brief description of the folder. 6. (Optional) Click the Create a Shortcut to This Folder in the Outlook Bar check box to remove the check mark if you prefer not to see the folder in the Outlook Bar. (By default, the check box is checked so that you will see the new folder in the Outlook Bar.) 7. Click OK to close the dialog box. The new folder appears on the Outlook Bar and in the Folder List. Timesaver Tip: Add Folder Later Even if you choose not to add the folder to the Outlook Bar when you create the folder, you can add it later. You simply choose File, Add to Outlook Bar. In the dialog box that appears, you can select any folder name in Outlook or on the system and add it to the Outlook Bar by selecting it and clicking OK. Timesaver Tip: I Want to Delete a Folder! If you added a folder by accident or you change your mind about a folder you've added, you can delete it from Outlook. To delete a folder, select it and then choose File, Folder, Delete foldername. You also can rename, move, and/or copy the folder using the commands in the secondary menu that appears when you choose File, Folder. Moving Items to Another Folder You can move items from one folder in Outlook to another; for example, you may create a folder to store all messages pertaining to a specific account or report. You can easily move those messages to the new folder and open them later for reference purposes. You also can forward, reply, copy, delete, and archive any items you move from one folder to another. To move an item to another folder, follow these steps: 1. From the Inbox or any Outlook folder, open the message you want to move. 2. Choose File, Move to Folder. The Move Item to dailog box appears (see Figure 11.3). Figure 11.3 Choose the folder in which you want to store the message. 3. In the list of folders, select the folder to which you want to move the message. 4. Click OK. When you close the message, Outlook stores it in the designated folder. Timesaver Tip: Quick Move You can quickly move an unopened message by dragging it from the open folder in which it resides to any folder icon in the Outlook Bar. You can open the message at any time by opening the folder from the Outlook bar and double-clicking the message. After opening it, you can forward, send, print, or otherwise manipulate the message as you would any other. In this lesson, you learned to save a draft, view sent items, and create folders. In the next lesson, you'll learn to use the Calendar.

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