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How to remove or clear filter applied from Inbox/Calendar in Outlook?

Author Kelly Last modified

In Microsoft Outlook, you can change a folder’s view settings and filter email messages, appointments, or tasks by some criteria. Sometimes, it may be needed to remove or clear applied filters. This article will guide you to remove and clear all filters or part of filters applied in the folders in Microsoft Outlook, such as Inbox, Calendar, task folders, etc.

Remove and clear all filters applied in selected folder

Remove and clear common filters applied in selected folder

Remove and clear customizing filters applied in selected folder

Remove and clear all filters applied in selected folder

In this article, I will take the Inbox for example and clear filters applied in the Inbox.

Step 1: Click to open the folder that you will clear filters from. In our case, we open the Inbox.

Step 2: To open the Advanced View Settings dialog box:

  1. In Outlook 2010 and 2013, click the "View Settings" button on the "View" tab.
  2. In Outlook 2007, click "View" > "Current View" > "Customize Current View".

the View Settings button

Step 3: In the popping up dialog box, click the "Filter" button.

the Filter button

Step 4: Click the "Clear All" button in the Filter dialog box.

the Clear All button

Step 5: Click both "OK" buttons in two dialog boxes.

Then all filters applied in the opening folder are removed immediately.

Remove and clear common filters applied in selected folder

Step 1: Get into the Filter dialog box with the Step 1 to Step 3 we talked about in the first method.

Step 2: Go to the "Messages" tab, and remove one or more filters as needed:

  1. Clear the filter criteria in the "Search for the word(s)" box
  2. Clear the filter criteria in "From" box
  3. Clear the filter criteria in "Sent To" box
  4. Uncheck the "Where I am" option
  5. Keep "none" in the "Time" box

the Messages tab

Note: The Messages tab may be replaced by Appointments and Meetings tab, or Contacts tab, or others based on the folder style you opened at the beginning.

Step 3: Go to the "More Choices" tab, and carry out one or more of the following actions:

  1. Clear the filter criteria in the "Categories" box
  2. Uncheck the option of "Only items that are"
  3. Uncheck the option of "Only items with"
  4. Uncheck the option of "Whose importance is"
  5. Uncheck the option of "Only items which"
  6. Uncheck the option of "Match case"
  7. Keep "doesn’t matter" in the box below "Size (kilobytes)"

the More Choices tab

Step 4: Click the "OK" buttons in both dialog boxes.

Remove and clear customizing filters applied in selected folder

Step 1: Get into the Filter dialog box with the Step 1 to Step 3 we talked about in the first method.

Step 2: Go to the "Advanced" tab in the Filter dialog box.

Step 3: In the "Find items that match these" box, click to select one filter criteria, and then click the "Remove" button.

the Filter dialog box

Note: Please repeat Step 3 if you need to remove more than one customizing filter criteria.

Step 4: Click the "OK" buttons in both dialog boxes.