Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello and welcome to this video in our HOW MCW series. My name is Matt Bauer and this
week’s video will focus on more tips for using Microsoft Outlook. These tips are shown
using Microsoft Outlook 2007, so the steps may vary slightly if you are using an earlier
version, such as Outlook 2003. In case you missed my first two videos on Outlook, you
can check them out here and here. In those videos, I detailed some useful Outlook tips,
and here are 3 more: 1. Create a Distribution list
Do you find yourself sending emails to a certain group of people fairly often? Distribution
lists will allow you to create a single contact that will act as a collection of contacts,
so instead of typing each person’s email address or adding them individually, you can
add just one item from your contacts which will contain all of the recipients. To do
this, just click File -> New -> Distribution List. Type a name for it. Then click Select
Members. Click the first contact you would like to add to the list, then hold down the
Ctrl key on your keyboard while selecting the other contacts. When you have all of them
selected, click the Members button on the bottom left. This will add them to the list.
Then just click OK. Then, Save and Close. Now when you are addressing contacts in an
email, you can type the name of the list you created, instead of typing everyone’s names
individually. 2. Create a simple rule
A Rule is basically a way to tell Outlook to perform an action based on pre-determined
criteria. There are a lot of different ways to set up different types of rules, but here
is one that’s pretty common: Let’s say you want to automatically direct
all email from a specific sender to a certain folder. You can do this very quickly by first
creating the destination folder. Right-click Inbox, select New Folder… Give the folder
a name, such as the specific sender’s name, and click OK. Then find an email from that
specific sender, right-click it, and select Create Rule…
Check the top box, indicating that you want the rule applied only to mail sent from this
particular sender. Then check the “Move the item to folder” box and click Select
Folder… Make sure to select the folder just created. Then click OK. Click OK once more
and you should be asked if you would like to run the new rule on all of the messages
in the current folder. If you would like to do this, check the box and click OK. If not,
leave it unchecked and click OK. Now when messages arrive from that sender, they will
automatically be moved into the folder you created.
3. Back up your Outlook Files It’s a good idea to back up your Outlook
data periodically in case disaster occurs. To do this, just click File, Import and Export,
Export to a File, Next, Personal Folder File (PST). A PST file is the native file format
that Outlook uses. Then click Next. You can back up a specific folder by clicking it in
the list or you can scroll up to the top-most folder to back up ALL folders. In both cases,
be sure to check this box to include all subfolders under the one you selected. Then click Next.
Click Browse and choose where to save the backup file. Then give it a name. If you make frequent
backups, you may want to include the date in the file name. Then click OK. Then, click
Finish.
Then, OK. Your backup may take a while depending on the amount of data you have in Outlook.
I’ll cover more Outlook features and tips in a future video, but if you have any training
suggestions or comments, I’d like to hear from you, so go ahead and send an email to
training@mycomputerworks.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking
the Subscribe button on any of our YouTube video pages. You can even find us on Facebook
and Twitter by clicking the links in the More Info section of this video. If you have any
questions about My Computer Works or would like more information about our services,
please call us at the number you see below, or visit us online at mycomputerworks.com.
My name is Matt Bauer, thanks so much for watching, and we’ll see you next time.