Add search field for folders when moving items to another folder
In Outlook 2016: I have many new incoming mails every day from different people with different topics. All mails of one topic should be placed in one specific folder but not in "Incoming". So I have a huge number of subfolders in my post office box. Actually, I pick one or more mail(s) from "Incoming" an place them e.g. in the folder "Verbesserungsvorschläge". Because of the huge numer of folgers and subfolder, I need some time to find the folder "Verbesserungsvorschläge". So I thought about to use the function "Element verschieben" ("Move element" or something like that). But there I have the same problem. I need too much time to find the destination folder.
My idea of improvement:
A search field integrated in "Move" to find the destination folder by typing the first letters of the destination folder, e.g. I type "Verb" and the intelligent serch lists me the results "Verbesserungsvorschläge" and "Verbesserungswesen". Than, I can select my favorite destination folder an press OK. The mail from the "Incoming folder" has moved to the folder "Verbesserungsvorschläge" and I saved much time without manual searching by eyes.
Also, when moving between folders, especially mail folders, make the default cursor location the search box, so I can start typing my search immediately.

195 comments
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Anika commented
Please add this feature for windows as it is already implemented for MacOS!
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Anonymous commented
I found this comment searching for this feature because I am migrating from Outlook for Mac to Outlook for Windows. Outlook for Mac has this crucial feature. It appears that with Outlook for Windows, I must select the archive folder which I would like to "Move" my email to from a final tree, using my cursor. This is insane...
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Sophie commented
This is a real necessity! it makes life so much easier to keep emails organised in the relevant folders. I'm currently having to switch to the web version when I have a lot of emails to move because it just takes to long on the windows version.
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Anonymous commented
This post is 5 years old and the feature has still not been added to Outlook - this is really disappointing.
This feature is available on Outlook.com (web version) so why is this crucial function not available on the desktop version?! Make it happen! -
Anonymous commented
I found this comment searching for this feature, because I am migrating from Outlook for Mac to Outlook for Windows. Outlook for Mac has this crucial feature. It appears that with Outlook for Windows, I must select the archive folder which I would like to "Move" my email to from a final tree, using my cursor. This is nuts...
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Jukka Maljanen commented
I've used GSuite and O365. GSuite has equivalent functionality "labels", which works wonderfully. O365 is behind in usability here.
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Mark Grotte commented
This was recently added to Outlook Mobile (Android), and it is such a huge time-saver. Would love to see this on Outlook for Windows.
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Christine commented
Completely agree!
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Rafal Rusiniak commented
Yes! this is definitely needed.
Outlook.com does this very well, surprised it is not part of desktop version.
Email filing is one of the easiest ways to get to "inbox zero" but it is extremely frustrating that it takes so much time to do it. -
Giuseppe Di Ruocco commented
This proposal is shortly 5 years old and is still missing. What a disappointment.
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Michael commented
Desktop App needs this feature. Outlook on the Web has had it for a while.
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Suleyman Tek commented
It will definitely save time.
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Badis M commented
I'm using the desktop version and I have to sort out a tremendous amount of emails. Adding a search feature when you select "Move to" when moving an email to a specific folder would be a great help. Gmail has this function and makes this daily task a lot easier and faster.
Many thanks
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Antonio commented
Bonsoir,
Je souhaite appuyer cette demande car nous travaillons tous dans de grandes entreprises et nous recherchons plus que jamais à gagner du temps. Le classement des mails grâce à un moteur de recherche va dans ce sens. Comme vous avez pu l'intégrer dans la version Web de Outlook.En remerciant les développeurs par avance de leur travail d'intégration.
Good evening
I want to support this demand because we all work in large companies and we are looking more than ever to save time. The ranking of emails through a search engine goes in this direction. This request already exists on the web version of Outlook.Thanking developers in advance for their integration work.
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Rob commented
I file a lot of emails in folders and I have many folders. Under Home/Move/Move in the ribbon, the list of recent folders helps. It would be very helpful to have a capability to quickly search for a folder within Home/Move/Move/Other Folder. Ideally there'd be one hotkey where I could then start typing the name of the folder, then I could select that folder with one more click and be done. As it is, scrolling through the list of folders after selecting Home/Move/Move/Other Folder is too time-consuming for me.
As an example, Yahoo Mail, as old as it is, has a hotkey combination to do this quickly.
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Kristi commented
The desktop app should have a search feature when you select "Move" to move an email to a specific folder. The web app has this option and it's very nice.
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Fábio Falcão commented
On the 'Move' drop-down menu in the e-mail, we usually see the latest e-mail folders we used to move messages to. But this list is not always intelligent, since we are moving different messages in random sequence.
Outlook should be able to propose smart options on this menu, like the the folder(s) where other mails on the same thread are located (or have been moved in the past), or different e-mails with the same keywords have been moved.
Since I have more than 50 different folders and sub-folders, this would help.
A search box on this Move menu would also help to type some letters and have Outlook show only the matching folders.
I have seen something similar already in the Outlook mobile, but not on the PC client. -
Nat Martinez commented
As part of my OCD, I have 40+ folders to categorize my email. I wish I didn't but I do :)
Would love to have a mini search box on the "move to folder" feature, in order to make the process easier, rather than scrolling down to find the right folder or sub-folder...
Thank you! -
mcswell commented
Thunderbird has a plug-in called Nostalgy; Outlook ought to have s.t. similar implemented in the Move | Other folder... command.
The way the Move | Other folder command works now: you have to select the full path to the folder from a depiction of the folders. If you have lots of folders, and especially if they're hierarchical, you waste a lot of time looking for the right folder.
The way it should work (the way it works in Nostalgy): you start typing characters from the name of the target folder (or the name of a folder above it, then a slash, then maybe more characters). Nostalgy brings up a list of the folder or folders that match what you're typing, and you can either keep typing until only one folder matches, or select one of the folders from the list (keyboard or mouse). What you type can be a substring of any folder name, e.g. if I have a folder Family | John | College, I can type "Col" or "lege" or even "ohn/coll". Makes it very fast to file emails--and more consistent (I don't wind up with multiple folders in the hierarchy that should be the same).
I realize the above description may be hard to follow; if you have Thunderbird, you should really try Nostalgy to see how it works. It's well designed.
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Anonymous commented
This feature is there in Mac and my most used Outlook feature. Adding this to the existing feature to keep a list of most recent folders would be great