Unified inbox for multiple IMAP/exchange accounts? [Outlook 2010]

[zYx]

Hi there,

like the subject says. Since I've been using my iPhone 4 with unified inbox for quite a while now, it is a bit annoying to keep switching between IMAP inboxes in outlook 2010. POP3 accounts are fine, all mails can go to one favorite inbox, but IMAP accounts work differently, by the look of it. The same was in outlook 2007, but I was wondering if there was a plug-in or extension of some kind that enables to use just one inbox?

You help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Irene]

Is this what you are looking for:
Set Up Single Inbox Folder For All Accounts In Outlook 2010

Launch Outlook 2010 and from left sidebar, select an account, right-click it and hit New Folder. From Create New Folder dialog, enter an appropriate name and click OK.

Now head over to Home tab and click Manage Rules & Alerts from Rules drop-down button.

From Rules and Alerts dialog, select an account and click New Rule.

In Rules Wizard, we will start off with creating a blank rule, click Apply rule on messages I receive and hit Next.

In this step of the wizard enable through the specified account option. From bottom of the dialog window click specified account and select the desired account from Account dialog window, and click OK.

You will see the specified account in the bottom of dialog window. Now click Next to continue

In this step, enable move it to the specified folder option, now click specified in the bottom of the window and select the Generic Inbox folder recently created, from new Rules and Alerts dialog.

You will see the folder name in the bottom of the window. Click Finish to end the wizard.

It will bring you back to Rules and Alerts dialog, showing newly created rule. Click OK to apply this newly created rule.

For associating this folder with other accounts, repeat the whole procedure to direct all mails from multiple accounts to Generic Inbox folder. On receiving emails, you will see all the emails in the specified mail folder.

Please post back with results.

 

[zYx]

Hi,

thanks for that, although I am aware of this "tweak". I should of mentioned that earlier :] but if I do that, where will these emails be kept? In .pst file on my HDD or on the remote server such as Gmail?

edit: It seems that I can move emails to my IMAP folders, even from other IMAP accounts. Not bad.
I will see how that works.

It is not what I was looking for, but I suppose there is no other options.

 

[Irene]

Another idea from here:
Outlook 2010 - working with multiple accounts : Microsoft Office

What you could do is set up an IMAP email account, like google. Then let all you other accounts forward there mail to that one IMAP account, and that IMAP account is then the one you open on startup. That way you see all the mail at once.

Another nice thing about this option is you can use the consolidated account to filter out spam and other mail using the google filters and spam filters.

 

[bitpath]

Unfortunately this does not help correctly

I am aware I can forward all my email from one account to another as well. The point of having other email accounts is the ability to organize functions or businesses, etc. To forward them all from one address to another is burdening either duplicating or negating much of the point of having separate emails.
With iPhone and Mac, there is a great feature where you can view all emails from all inboxes at once, and with imap, when you delete emails from the view all inboxes it deletes them from the correct account. This also applies to drafts, sent mail, etc. on the mac. You can view each account individually or view all sent items or all drafts from all accounts in an easily sortable searchable list. Viewing them all at once or by account is quick and intuitive. It is very handy.
If I created rules and forwarded them into one box, they would not be in the original accounts or if they were I'd still have dups every where instead of when I delete it once it deletes everywhere correctly. The consolidated views are virtual and switching back and forth is seamless. I haven't seen anything but the iPhone and Mac do this.
Are there any windows programs that can do this as well?

 

[Irene]

Perhaps this might be a 'walk-around' alternative:
Unified Inbox folder for recent unread items | MSOutlook.info

Outlook doesn’t offer such a feature as sadly Search Folders are limited to the folder set or mailbox that they are created in. We can however use the Instant Search feature to generate such a list on-demand within a few seconds. To be more precise; 1 keyboard shortcut + 2 clicks.
Outlook 2010

Thanks to the fact that the Search options are on the Ribbon in Outlook 2010, creating the initial “Unified Inbox folder” query goes a bit quicker than with Outlook 2007;

1. Start an “All Mail Items” search via the keyboard shortcut; CTRL+ALT+A
2. Click on; This Week
3. Click on; Unread

Note: Optionally you can change the arrangement from “By Outlook Data File” to “Date” or any another field by right clicking on the Arranged By column.
Outlook 2007

As mentioned, creating the initial query for Outlook 2007 takes a bit more clicks but once configured, recreating the query takes 2 keyboard shortcuts and 4 clicks or 1 keyboard shortcut and 2 clicks when going via Recent Searches (see below);

1. Start and “All Mail Items” search via the keyboard shortcut; CTRL+ALT+A
2. Expand the Query Builder via the keyboard shortcut; CTRL+ALT+W
3. Via the Add Criteria button add the Received field (only needed the first time)
   Set the field to; This Week
4. Also add the Read field (only needed the first time as well)
   Set the field to; No

Note: Optionally you can change the arrangement from “By Outlook Data File” to “Date” or any another field by right clicking on the Arranged By column.
Recent Searches

Now that you’ve done the search once, it will be listed under the Recent Searches button on the Ribbon (Outlook 2010) or by clicking on the down arrow in the Search field (Outlook 2007). Up to 10 of your last queries are saved here.

Using the Recent Searches list speeds up creating a custom Unified Inbox folder.
This doesn’t reduce the amount of clicks compared to the method above for Outlook 2010 but it does when using Outlook 2007 or when you customize your query in for instance;
received:today folder:Inbox read:no
The above search query will look in all the folders which are named Inbox for items that were received today day and are marked as unread.
Note: When using Recent Searches, make sure you still start with the CTRL+ALT+A shortcut or you’ll only search within the current folder.
“Today’s Unread Mail” alternative

For a permanent indication of unread mail across all your accounts, you can create a “Today’s Unread Mail” Search Folder for each account and add that to your Favorites list.
It won’t be a truly “Unified Inbox folder” but it is the closest Outlook has to offer at the moment.

 

[EricTucson]

After looking for a solution the easiest for me was the most low-tech. I have 5 different IMAP accounts in Outlook and in the beginning I had to click on the + sign, click on Inbox, scroll down to the next email, click on the + sign, click on Inbox, scroll down to the next email, etc. Each account has quite a few folders so the "Mail Folders" pane on the left was turning into a massively long tree unless I added the extra click of closing the tree after checking each Inbox. Not fun.

In the end I just used the "Favorite Folders" area on the left pane. I'm using Outlook 2007, not sure if it's the same for 2010. It's the top category in the tree. I dragged a link to my Inbox for each account (just drag the actual Inbox into that area and it will create a link) and cleared out the other folders. Now when I open Outlook I have all 5 Inboxes showing at top and I just click on the one I want to see. If a new messages comes in to any Inbox the link gets shown in bold so I know to check it, and most importantly I can switch from one Inbox to another with a single click. That area is always accessible on my screen no matter how many folders or trees I have open in the "Mail Folders" section under it so I'm always 1 click away from another Inbox.

You'll have to open up each IMAP folder tree to move emails from one folder to another, but that turns into mostly a maintenance issue as opposed to a "have to do it every single time I want to check my email" issue. Sometimes I want to do a quick email check before leaving but there's no way I was going to go through the brain damage of a dozen clicks to check everything.

Not perfect, but it gets me what I want quickly 90% of the time.

 

[zYx]

After looking for a solution the easiest for me was the most low-tech. I have 5 different IMAP accounts in Outlook and in the beginning I had to click on the + sign, click on Inbox, scroll down to the next email, click on the + sign, click on Inbox, scroll down to the next email, etc. Each account has quite a few folders so the "Mail Folders" pane on the left was turning into a massively long tree unless I added the extra click of closing the tree after checking each Inbox. Not fun.

In the end I just used the "Favorite Folders" area on the left pane. I'm using Outlook 2007, not sure if it's the same for 2010. It's the top category in the tree. I dragged a link to my Inbox for each account (just drag the actual Inbox into that area and it will create a link) and cleared out the other folders. Now when I open Outlook I have all 5 Inboxes showing at top and I just click on the one I want to see. If a new messages comes in to any Inbox the link gets shown in bold so I know to check it, and most importantly I can switch from one Inbox to another with a single click. That area is always accessible on my screen no matter how many folders or trees I have open in the "Mail Folders" section under it so I'm always 1 click away from another Inbox.

You'll have to open up each IMAP folder tree to move emails from one folder to another, but that turns into mostly a maintenance issue as opposed to a "have to do it every single time I want to check my email" issue. Sometimes I want to do a quick email check before leaving but there's no way I was going to go through the brain damage of a dozen clicks to check everything.

Not perfect, but it gets me what I want quickly 90% of the time.

That's how I have it and I have to live with it. Even simple iOS has unified inbox, what the hell microsoft?

 

[EricTucson]

What's odd is that I'm switching all of my old POP3 accounts to IMAP in preparation for an iPad purchase. I didn't even know the iPad had a universal inbox until I started checking on ways to clean up Outlook. Now I'm wondering if my "travel iPad" will end up being the default choice for email checking even when I'm close to my desktop/laptop. Part of the reason I held off on an iPad purchase was because I thought it would make my email checking more complicated. Turns out it's the other way around.

 

[bjenkin]

Tried Unified Inbox approach

1. OK tried that approach and all I get is :
Cannot create the folder.....


2. ALSO my other gripe is that my emails are all cleared from view within a day.
Luckily I run 2003 on my laptop and can "retrieve" older emails as I wish.
I've always managed my emails effectively and would like to be able to continue to do so.
This is very frustrating - does anyone know how to turn off all these "marvellous" features in OUtlokk 2010?

 

[Froberg]

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I saw it and I registered just to comment and help out. I had this issue as well, and my final solution was to abandon Outlook entirely, and substitute it for Thunderbird. In Thunderbird I currently have; 8 IMAP accounts. One unified inbox. Automatic signature based on which account I was e-mailed on. Automatic reply from the proper email account. I've seen others mention, not in this thread - but it's worth noting nonetheless, that you can just forward your e-mails to one account - if you've got a slew of gmail/google apps accounts - and simply use that. SPAM does not get forwarded when you do that, and GMAIL does make mistakes. Anyway, Thunderbird + Thunder plugin for calendar and sync with your google calendar is the best option I have found thus far for a single unified inbox, where you reply with the proper account and can automatically have the proper email signature (if desired). Hope this helps.

 

[rigdenage]

managing multiple email Inboxes

After looking for a solution the easiest for me was the most low-tech. ... In the end I just used the "Favorite Folders" area on the left pane.

Thanks Eric - This looks like the solution I need, thanks for the details. I'm just migrating from an old laptop with XP and Office 2010, to a new laptop with Windows 7. Office 2010 on XP had a unified Inbox for my various email accounts, so it was very puzzling to not see it in Windows 7. It also used the signature appropriate to the account, and I could write an email and swap which account it was from with a click.

As everyone says, it's a puzzling, retrograde step from MS.

Chris

 

[weelzup]

To add insult to injury... Outlook 2011 for Mac has a unified inbox for all accounts, but not their Windows based flagship. Nice going MS :shock:

 

[zYx]

To add insult to injury... Outlook 2011 for Mac has a unified inbox for all accounts, but not their Windows based flagship. Nice going MS :shock:

Unbelievable. I'm going to check this in my virtual machine mac os x.

I thought that Office 10 will bring this feature to outlook... but no...