Mailbox Organisation: How To Read & Unread Emails Manually
Keeping your mailbox organised isn’t just about staying tidy, it directly impacts productivity, response times, and stress levels. Many users don’t realise that Microsoft Outlook and other email clients often mark messages as read automatically the moment you click on them. That might seem helpful, but it can also cause important emails to slip through the cracks. In this blog, I walk through a simple but powerful fix: how to manually control when an email is marked as read or unread. This small adjustment can make a huge difference to your daily workflow.
6 Simple Step To Manually Read Emails
Here is the simple way in which you can organise your mailbox by manually setting emails to read & unread instead of Microsoft automatically marking the email as read when you click on it:
- Open Microsoft Outlook or Exchange
- Click on file, then options
- Then look for advanced options and click on it.
- You then want to locate a tab called reading pane
- Uncheck ‘Mark items as read when selection changes’
- Hit ‘Ok’, and you’re good to go!
Now when you click on an email, you it will not automatically be marked as read.
You can ‘right-click’ and email to manually mark it as read or add a quick access button to the top of your email page to mark an email as read.
Setup Quick Access to Mark Emails As Read/ Unread
You can ‘right-click’ and email to manually mark it as read or add a quick access button to the top of your email page to mark an email as read.
- Using the search box within Outlook or Exchange, search ‘Unread/ Read’
- Right click the ‘Unread/ Read’ icon and click on ‘ Add to Quick Access Toolbar’
- The ‘Read/ Unread’ icon will now be placed at the top of your email within the Quick Access section
Need Help Improving Your Email Setup?
If you’re finding that your Outlook settings, shared mailboxes, or Microsoft 365 environment are slowing you down, we can help streamline things. From inbox organisation to cloud storage optimisation and full IT support, Evogize IT helps businesses get more value from the tools they already pay for.