How to highlight important emails in Outlook?

Supposing you received an important email from your colleague in Outlook, the important email is marked with the small important icon  in the mail list. However, some users may think this important icon is not obvious enough, and they want to make the important emails outstanding. In this article, I will show you how to highlight important emails automatically in Outlook.

The following guidance will walk you through highlighting all important emails automatically in the specified mail folder in Outlook.

Step 1: Open the mail folder where you will highlight important emails, and then click the View Settings button on the View tab.

Note: In Outlook 2007, you can click the View > Current View > Customize Current View.

Step 2: In the coming dialog box, click the Conditional Formatting button (or Automatic Formatting button).

Step 3: Now the Conditional Formatting dialog box opens. Click the Add button in it.

Step 4: Go to the Properties of selected rule section, enter a name for the new rule in the Name box.

Step 5: Click the Condition button in the Conditional Formatting dialog box. In the popping up Filter dialog box, go to the Advanced tab, and then:

(1) Click the Field > All Mail fields > Importance;

(2) Click the Conditior (or Condition) box, and select the equals from the drop down list;

(3) Click the Value box, and select the High from the drop down list;

(4) Click the Add to List button;

(5) Click the OK button.

Step 6: Click the Font button in the Conditional Format dialog box. Then in the Font dialog box, specify the font, font style, font size, font color successively. And click the OK button.

Step 7: Click all OK buttons to close all dialog boxes.

Then you will see all important email messages in the certain mail folder are highlighted as the specified formats.