Customize current view - arrange and group emails

Author: Kelly Last Modified: 2020-01-13

If you have not customized the Inbox folder view or reset to the default view, the emails are grouped and sorted by the received date and time automatically in the message list. Here, this tutorial will show you the way to arrange or group emails by different criterion.

Quick arrange (group and sort) emails
Group emails with View Settings

Note: This tutorial is introduced based on exchange account in Microsoft Outlook 2019 desktop program in Windows 10. And it may vary significantly or slightly depending on the types of email accounts (Exchange, IMAP or POP), the versions of Microsoft Outlook, and Windows environments.

Quick arrange (group and sort) emails

You can quickly arrange emails (group and sort emails simultaneously) by the arrangement commands in the Ribbon and in the message list easily.

1. After opening the Inbox folder, please click More icon at the bottom-right corner of the Arrangement box on the View tab, and then click Show in Groups to enable this option.
Tips: By default, this option is enabled. You’d better check whether it has been enabled before below operations.

2. Then you can quickly arrange emails with clicking the criteria in the Arrangement box on the View tab.

You can also quickly arrange emails in the message list with clicking at the top of the message list, and then select an arrange criteria in the Arrange by section in the drop-down list. See screenshot:

Group emails with View Settings

You can also configure the view settings, and then group emails by one or more criteria easily in the current view.

1. After opening the Inbox folder, please click View > View Settings.

2. In the opening dialog, please click the Group By button.

3. In the popping out Group By dialog box, please do as follows:
(1) Untick the Automatically group according to arrangement option;
(2) In the Group items by section, please select the criteria that you will group emails based on from the drop-down list;
(3) Please select and check the sort order as you need. In this case, I check Ascending.

Tips:
(1) If you cannot find the specified group criteria in above step (2), you can change the field category from the Select available fields from drop down-list, and then select group criteria in the Group items by drop-down list again.
(2) If you need to group emails by multiple criteria, please go ahead to specify the group criteria and sort order in below Then by sections as much as you need.

4. Click the OK > OK successively.

Now the emails are grouped by the specified criteria in the message list.

Notes

(1) If you need to clear the customized group and group items by date again, please click View > Date in the Arrangement box on the Ribbon or > Date at the top of the message list.

(2) If you need to clear the customized view settings from the current view, please click View > Reset View on the Ribbon.