One of the best ways to manage and keep track of your emails using Microsoft Outlook is to create folders and file messages into them once they’re dealt with.
You could, for example, create folders for communication with specific clients, internal messages and important details you will need to refer to time and time again. If arranged in alphabetical order, it means that no matter how many folders you create, it should be quick and easy to locate the one you want.
However, in one of those annoying and unnecessary tweaks Microsoft is prone to making (see here and here for other examples), we’ve recently noticed that Outlook is upsetting the alphabetical order of our folders. It keeps rearranging the order so that the one most recently modified jumps to the top. This is particularly unhelpful if you’re using a shared mailbox, as another person might have added an email to a folder that you weren’t aware of, meaning that to you, the order of the folders would appear arbitrary.
If you’ve noticed this and are finding it irritating too, it is possible to simply right-click the inbox and rearrange the order to A-Z, but this will only solve the problem that once. Once you log out and log in again, folders will continue to be rearranged in the date they were added to.
To make Outlook stop juggling the orders of folders permanently, there is a short and simple process you can follow:
1. Go into Folder on the ribbon at the top. If you can’t see Folder, it might be because you’re using the Simplified Ribbon. If that’s the case, right-click the ribbon and select ‘Use Classic Ribbon’, upon which you should see Folder
2. Below the ribbon, you should now see a box labelled ‘Show all Folders A – Z’. Click this box
That should do it. Your folders will now display in alphabetical order again all the time, and you can keep managing your folders in a logical and easy-to-index way.
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Hi John, How can we get our folders (in a shared mailbox) to stay in the order that we want them in? We have put “__” and “___” at the front of some folders to bring them to the top however the order we want those folders and the others are not necessarily in alphabetical order (importance vs. alpha). Thanks!
Hi Juile. The simplest way I can think of is to add a number at the front to indicate their priority, for example 1. HR, 2. Sales, 3. Clients, etc. If you have more than 10, number them 01, 02, 03 etc.
This has been driving me nuts for months! I have three accounts in outlook and only one of them refused to keep the folders in alphabetical order, even if I right clicked on the account name and selected “sort A-Z” from my Favorites side bar… it would always unsort after a few minutes. THANK YOU!
i don’t want them in alphabetical order I want my folder the way I put them. The order i like and use.
I can’t get mine to stay out of sub folders. Outlook just keeps putting things under other folders and if I move them, the go back into the same folder or another one.
Thank you for your comment Shirley! This blog was more specifically about arranging folders in alphabetical order, but you could try putting 1, 2, 3 etc in front of the folder names to indicate the desired order. Doing that then sorting by A-Z would work. 🙂 Hope that helps!
Glad this blog helped! 🙂
Hi Andra, sorry to hear you’re experiencing some issues! Have you tried right clicking on the folder, selecting ‘Move Folder’ and then selecting ‘Inbox’, rather than trying to drag and drop it manually? 🙂