Focused and Other Inboxes

Focused Inbox separates your inbox into two tabs—Focused and Other. Your most important email messages are on the Focused tab while the rest remain easily accessible—but out of the way—on the Other tab.

To create an inbox that "feels right" to you, the system takes into account emails and contacts with whom you interact, and filters out noisy sources like automatically generated or bulk email. The more you use it, the better it gets.

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Focused Inbox Video

Turn Focused Inbox on or off

Open Outlook.
Select View > View Settings .
In Mail > Layout, select the account you want to apply the settings to.
To turn on, select the option to Sort messages into Focused and Other.
To turn Focused Inbox off, select Don't sort my messages.
If you made a change, select Save.

When Focused Inbox is turned on, the Focused and Other tabs display at the top of your mailbox. You’ll be informed about email flowing to Other, and you can switch between tabs any time to take a quick look.

Change how your messages get organized

From your inbox, select the Focused or Other tab, and then right-click the message you want to move.
To move a message from Focused to Other, select Move > Move to Other inbox. Select Always move to Other inbox if you want all future messages from the sender to be delivered to the Other tab.

If you're moving a single message from Other to Focused, select Move > Move to Focused inbox. Select Always move to Focused inbox if you want all future messages from the sender to be delivered to the Focused tab.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. As soon as you enable Focused Inbox, you’ll see the Focused and Other tabs at the top of your Inbox. The more you use Focused Inbox, the smarter it gets about how it organizes your messages. You can also teach Outlook what matters most to you by moving emails between Focused and Other, and setting overrides to make sure emails from certain senders always show up in a particular destination.

If you're using a shared mailbox, Focused Inbox will not work. This is by design.

To tell Outlook to deliver messages from a certain sender to your Focused Inbox, right-click (or control-click on a mac) on the message in your Other Inbox. Then, select Always Move to Focused, and click OK. Future emails from that sender will be directed to your Focused Inbox.