Help learning to use Outlook after gmail ...

Savvy_Sue

I have for years been a very happy gmail user, at work and at home.

Only now at work we've been moved from gmail to Outlook 2016, and I am struggling.

I spent quite a bit of time looking for help with learning to 'drive' Outlook this afternoon, and found some good 'top tips' lists etc, but I've worked out that what I really want is an idiot's guide that goes "you know how you used to do X in gmail? This is how you do it in Outlook."

Does anyone know if such a thing exists? And if not, is there something really basic which starts at the top left hand corner of the Outlook screen and goes through showing what's in each of these fancy options, in plain English?

I mean, just views is driving me nuts! I have to change to an IMAP view if I want to see what's been imported, but apparently I can't do it on all folders (because that just doesn't work), and I keep forgetting that that's what I have to do when I can't find any history, and then I want conversation view, but sometimes I can only see the latest bit of the conversation rather than the original email, which is the one I REALLY need to see because that's the one with the attachment I need to open!

Mr_Toad

Go on to YouTube and search for Outlook tutorial, there are loads.

LadyDee

I love the "Dummies" books - bought a fair few in my time :-)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outlook-2016-Dummies/dp/1119076889

Le_Kirk

Ask you work's IT department (or whoever it was that decided you should use Outlook) for a tutorial.

Savvy_Sue

Le_Kirk wrote: »

Ask you work's IT department

I'm the accidental techie. Usually these things don't phase me, but this has stumped me ... The external IT support service hasn't suggested anything, but then I don't think they realise how 'stuck' I'm getting. Although the number of 'is it me?' queries may clue them in soon, especially when they're followed by 'It's me ...'

Le_Kirk wrote: »

(or whoever it was that decided you should use Outlook)

Ah yes ... That would be my manager, breathing down my neck for me to get on top of it because they need me to be able to tell other people how it works rather than banging my head in frustration because I just don't know!

I think it's probably YouTube tutorials I need, but thanks for all the suggestions.

Actually it's TIME and YouTube tutorials and not being asked to do multiple other really really urgent things at the same time as prioritising the IT.

Le_Kirk

Manager "Can you just do this job please?"
You "Ye.."
Manager "Have you finished yet?"
I remember that scenario, gone to memories now!
Go to Auntie Google and type "Microsoft outlook 2016 step by step pdf" without the "" The first response was a step-by-step pdf quick start guide.

You are right about the you tube tutorials they seem to be all adverts, want subscriptions or are in non-English.

John_Gray

Sue, I think you should find that Outlook and Gmail do things fairly similarly, and it may be largely a matter of ploughing through the menus of Outlook to see what they contain.

Were you to have specific questions about "how would you do this in Outlook?", I am sure that those people with experience dating back to Outlook 97 would be delighted to reply!

Code

Outlook is far, far more functional than GMail. Both have the same set of core features, but Outlook is more designed for corporate environments where it can integrate with other MS products and provide way more productivity features than GMail. I use GMail for personal email, but would always choose Outlook for business.

As John Gray says, what specifically do you need to know how to do?

Savvy_Sue

Well, getting the IMAP view across ALL folders would be a good start - despite choosing the option to 'apply this view to all folders' it just doesn't.

Then, I've learned from bitter experience that if you find an email which is part of a conversation, you have to do something else if you want to see the ORIGINAL email, the one with the attachment you were looking for. I have no precise idea how I've got it set up (because I'm currently at home), but I do know that I found an email which in the preview pane showed an attachment, but the attachment was nowhere to be seen in the reading pane. Then we clicked on some arrow somewhere, and the original email with the attachment was visible. I'd like that applied to all folders.

What those two boil down to is that when I do a search, I want it to find everything I might be looking for, not some subset of what it thinks I might be looking for. I can always filter if too much comes back, but when I get nothing, I'm stumped.

I know I'll get there in time, but I need to speed up the process!

My background is one of "I know this program can do X, Y and Z, I just need to find out HOW it does X, Y and Z."

I have so far found ONE thing I like a lot - that when you click to add an attachment, you get a list of recently opened files.

Here's hoping I find some more things to get excited about ...

Le_Kirk

Try this link for your folder view.

Code

Have to say, I'm not really sure what your question is. Maybe this helps

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Find-all-messages-in-the-same-thread-93195731-f8b4-4a62-a554-cfa5b74a5be1

It sounds like you need to play with the search and filter options a little...