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How to remove follow up flags for email messages in Outlook?

Sometimes, email messages with flags, for example the follow up flags, arrive into your Microsoft Outlook. And you need to remove the follow up flags for these email messages in some cases. Here we will provide three methods to remove the follow up flags from email messages in Microsoft Outlook.

Remove the follow up flag for a received email

Mass remove the follow up flags for all received emails in a certain folder

Automatically remove the follow up flags for all incoming emails

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arrow blue right bubbleRemove the follow up flag for a received email

This method will guide you to remove the follow up flag for a received email message easily in Microsoft Outlook.

Step 1: Open a mail folder, and click to select the email whose follow up flag you will remove.

Step 2: Right click the flag icodoc-remove-flag-4-0 behind the email in the mail list, and select the Clear Flag in the right-clicking menu.

Then the follow up flag is removed from the selected email message immediately.


arrow blue right bubbleMass remove the follow up flags for all received emails in a certain folder

This method is about mass removing all follow up flags for all received email messages in a certain folder in Microsoft Outlook.

Step 1: Click to open a folder that you will mass remove all follow up flags from.

Step 2: Place the cursor into the Search box to activate the Search Tools, and then click the Flagged button. See screen shot:

Note: If you are using Microsoft Outlook 2007, firstly expand the Query Builder with clicking the Expand button besides the Search box, secondly click the Add Criteria > Flag Status, next click the Flag Status filed and select the Followup Flag from drop down list.

  

Step 3: select all email messages in the searching results.

Note: You can select all email messages with clicking one and then pressing the Ctrl + A keys.

Step 4: Right click any one flag icon in the mail list, and select the Clear Flag in the right-clicking menu.

Then all follow up flags are removed in this selected folder at once.


arrow blue right bubbleAutomatically remove the follow up flags for all incoming emails

This method will guide you step by step to remove the follow up flags for all incoming emails in Microsoft Outlook automatically.

Step 1: Shift to the Mail view, and get into the Rules and Alerts dialog box:

  1. In Outlook 2007, click the Tools > Rules and Alerts.
  2. In Outlook 2010 and 2013, click the Rules > Manager Rules & Alerts on the Home tab.

Step 2: In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, please click the New Rule button.

Step 3: In the Rules Wizard dialog box, click to highlight the Apply rule on messages I receive (or Check messages when they arrive in Outlook 2007), and click the Next button. See screen shot:

Step 4: In the new Rules Wizard dialog box,

  1. Check the flagged for action;
  2. Click the text of action.
  3. In the popping up Flagged Message dialog box, click the Flag box and select the Follow up from the drop down list, and then click the OK button.
  4. Click the Next button.

Step 5: In the third Rules Wizard dialog box, check the clear the Message Flag, and click the Next button.

Step 6: Click the Next buttons in the following dialog box, and then in the last Rules Wizard dialog box,

  1. Enter a name for this new rule in the Step1: specify a name for this rule box;
  2. It’s optional to check the option of Run this rule now on messages already in "folder name";
  3. Click the Finish button.

Note: If you check the option of Run this rule now on messages already in "kelly", it will remove all existing follow up flags from the folder of "kelly". And the "kelly" will change and display as your folder name automatically.

Step 7: Click the OK button to close the Rules and Alerts dialog box.

This rule will automatically remove the follow up flags for new incoming email messages.


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Comments (3)
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This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
I have done as instructed, now there are small colorless flags beside each email received, and the bright red flag is still in the toolbar. Is this normal? Originally the flags slowed my computer to a constant 'not responding' and took minutes even hours to delete emails. Now It still says 'not responding' when I try to delete several emails at once, but for only maybe 30 seconds. Is this acceptable for Outlook 2010
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
All these comments are helpful, BUT a better solution from the old Outlook 2010 was to have NO FLAG icon as the default. This made it easy to find Flagged messages. More important, I am partly color blind, so all the color codes on the tiny flags look virtually the same to me. Keep it simple! Microsoft please make NO FLAG the default in the next update. Am surprised this was not caught in a Beta Test.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
This is a great tip. However, it only removes the follow up from the new message. Not that original one as well. Thus, the follow up is still sitting in your to-do list from the original message. Is there a way to clear it from the original message as well?
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