Outlook Main Interface – To-Do Bar
The To-Do Bar is turned off by default in the Outlook main interface. However, you can turn it on to show the upcoming calendar items, tasks, and favorited contacts as you need.
- Turn on and Turn off the To-Do Bar
- Customize the whole To-Do Bar
- Customize people section in the To-Do Bar
- Customize task section in the To-Do Bar
Note: This tutorial is introduced based on Microsoft Outlook 2019 desktop program in Windows 10. And it may vary significantly or slightly depending on the version of Microsoft Outlook and the Windows environments.
Turn on and Turn off the To-Do Bar
Click View > To-Do Bar to enable the drop-down menu, and then select Calendar, People, or Tasks from the drop-down menu to display the To-Do Bar and corresponding section.
If the To-Do Bar is turned on, you can close it by clicking View > To-Do Bar > Off.
Customize the whole To-Do Bar
Change the displaying orders of Calendar, People and Tasks
We can display three sections in the To-Do Bar: calendar, people and tasks. The displaying orders of these sections depend on the orders you added them. For example, you click View > To-Do Bar > People to show the people section first, then the calendar section, and finally the tasks section. Finally, the To-Do Bar will display as below screenshot shown:
To change the displaying orders of these section, you need to turn off the To-Do Bar, and then add these sections with the new order. For example, we need to display in the order of task, people and calendar, we can do as follows: (1) Click View > To-Do Bar > Off to turn off the To-Do Bar; (2) Click View > To-Do Bar > Task to add the task section; (3) Click View > To-Do Bar > People to add the people section; (4) Click View > To-Do Bar > Calendar to add the calendar section; (5) Then the displaying orders of these sections are changed.
Close a certain section from the To-Do Bar
Supposing you want to close the calendar section from the To-Do Bar, you can click View > To-Do Bar > Calendar to clear the tick mark before Calendar in the drop-down menu.
Alternatively, you can also click at the upper-right corner of the calendar section to remove it from the To-Do Bar.
Customize people section in the To-Do Bar
Quickly search contacts in the To-Do Bar
If you have added the people section in the To-Do Bar, you can search contacts in the To-Do Bar immediately.
Go to the people section in the To-Do Bar, type the search keyword in the Search box, and press the Enter key. Then the found contacts are listing in the people section immediately.
You can click at the rightmost of the Search box to clear the search results.
View, Copy, Edit, or Delete favorited contacts in the To-Do Bar
If you have added the people section in the To-Do Bar, go to the people section, right click the specified favorited contact, and do actions to the contact with the options in the right-clicking menu.
- Copy: Copy the current selected contact in the To-Do Bar.
- Remove from Favorites: Remove the current selected contact from the people section.
- Edit Contact: Open the Contact window of the current selected contact to edit.
- Open Outlook Properties: Open the Properties dialog of the current selected contact.
- Open Contact Card: Open the contact card of the current selected contact.
Customize task section in the To-Do Bar
Quick arrange task items in the To-Do Bar
If you have added the task section in the To-Do Bar, you can quickly arrange the tasks items with the Arrange by drop-down menu.
- All Mail, Unread Mail, Mentioned Mail: They are likely filter options to filter emails among the to-do list items. However, they seem not work at all.
- Arrange By: Group or sort items of To-Do List by start date, due date, storing folder, or importance status, and group items by categories or items types.
- Reverse Sort: Reverse the sort order of current view you have set for the items of To-Do List.
- Show in Groups: Show the To-Do list items in groups.
- View Settings: Quickly access the Advanced View Settings: To-Do List dialog immediately.
Quick sort task items in the To-Do Bar
The tasks are automatically sorted by due date in the To-Do Bar. You can click the to reverse the sort order and show tasks in a descending order, or click
to reverse sort order and show tasks in an ascending order.
Quick create a task in the To-Do Bar
In the task section of the To-Do Bar, you can type a task name into the box below Arrange By drop-down menu, and press the Enter key to create a new task at ease. And the new created task will be added into the Today group.

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