Focused and Other - Get Rid Of!
I want one inbox - I didn't ask for two. The other and focused options are so screwed up and annoying; I cannot even imagine why this was done. Most of the time I am getting focused emails in my other and other emails in my focused. How do your algorithms even sort or decide which is which? And why are you deciding? It is my inbox!
Angelina
shared this idea
First off – I want to thank each and every one of your for trying the Outlook.com beta. Also for spending the time to offer and vote on all of the feedback.
I wanted to make sure that we let you all know that we did add some more controls around the Focused/Other inboxes. This includes allowing you to decide if you want it on or off.
We also fixed some bugs to make sure that it keeps your desired setting after you login/log out
To Control Focused Other Do the following:
1) Login to your account and make sure you are in the Beta
2) In the top right hand corner there is a little Gear Icon, click on it.
3) This opens the quick settings pane. From here you can disable Focused/Other, as well as other features like Conversation View, and the reading Pane.
Also, as you click on the settings in the Quick Settings you should see your screen update. This should help you ensure you are configuring your setup exactly the way you like.
Hope this helps, and thanks for all of the feedback!
David Los
325 comments
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Anonymous
commented
Add option to remove "Focused" and "Other" section. Utterly useless to most people. People don't want you to decide which email is more important. I am a business owner and I need to see all my emails in chronological order all in the same place. Seems you have copied Gmail who also did this a few years ago but they called it "Social" and "More". It is completely useless and only hinders the process of reading emails.
You can add these features and no one would complain if you just gave us the courtesy of allowing us to disable it. It is not your place to decide what emails I do and don't want to read. I will have to switch to Yahoo it seems as they are the only mainstream mail client that still shows emails in the order they come in without separating them. I already have two Yahoo accounts for my eBay stores.
Also give option to disable preview pane as it takes up too much space.
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Carol Hewitt
commented
I find the new look very busy and cluttered. The circus-like round icons next to different senders names makes the overall look far busier and distracting than necessary.
I find the last set of developments between a "focused" and "other" mailbox frustrating enough. I've missed important emails that were addressed solely to me so obvious not marketing things from brands I've purchased from (which I assumed was the intent or use of the "other" box). In one instance two emails that needed a an urgent response we sent to junk mail for no discernible reason! I can only imagine this cluttered new appearance will make things even more frustrating. Organization is one thing but I really wish Outlook would stop trying to micromanage my mail for me.
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Anonymous
commented
I want to be able to filter by date or from. I like being able to turn focused off. I do not like the focused at all..
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Des
commented
Give me what I have been used to for years! One inbox, not two! My android doensn't like it either!
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Anonymous
commented
It's bad enough having to change back and forth from focused to other to make sure I've responded to everything I need to. The new beta layout is confusing and obnoxious. Just leave it alone and list emails in the order they come. It's not exactly brain surgery to hit the delete button if I don't want it.
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Louise Hayward
commented
I do not like the interface of the new Beta. It looks like outlook and is too cluttered with lots of vertical panels. I like being able to see a long list of all my emails, only taking up a line each with the name and subject like before - it doesn't need the intro of what the email says.
I also DETEST the new 'focussed/other' view of my emails. How can I change it back? It's like I now have to check two lots of emails as they don't show on the same page!!
Thanks
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scott plumley
commented
original was better i do not rate this beta highly, too clustered, too hard too to just skim through the first few recent emails.
on the original though i dislike the new feature of Focused and other, as there is no logical reason i can see of splitting them as you have, unless i personally got too choose the filtering process which i didn't. keep it sleak and user friendly, not all people using the outlook are computer savy and the outlook app is terrible and not user friendly -
Julius
commented
Why bothering change the layout? keep it simple, just as it has been for many years. The new one just look like one of those generic mail apps or programs from the office. everything showing off in the same screen, this looks terryble and is really a mess, when i click on a email,i want that only and specific mail showing up, in big, in the center of the screen, just like it was before.
I DONT LIKE IT. DONT CHANGE THE LAYOUT
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Christina
commented
I dislike the "focused" thing. I like to just be able to flag the important ones and sort to be able to keep flagged on top; then sort the remaining by date, sender, etc. I change my sort depending on if I'm doing a sweep or just checking for updates, etc. I also hate the conversation ring. Just keep it on one email document instead of the multiple threads. It gets so confusing and you end up responding to the wrong email. I would like the idea of easily adding emoticons and gifs but I didn't get that far because I was too frustrated with the focused thing and not being able to sort while in Beta so I turned Beta off and didn't play any further with it.
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lomax_gregory_j_
commented
Merge the other and focused, I do not need to hunt in both tabs. It is very annoying.
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Adina
commented
Not a huge fan of focused. I want all of my mail in one spot unless I otherwise filter it to another folder. Also, this new "beta" version is too bubbly. It's distracting.
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Olivier
commented
i hate the separation of Prioritary and other mail. Give us the third option o have all the email in one
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Musa
commented
Too much like office 365. I don't like the fact that the messages are condensed I like to read the snippet of it but this makes me need to click it and wastes a lot of time(The snippet there already is too short). I can read the snippet and mark whether it is important or not without actually clicking into it. I delete emails which I think is no important without actually clicking into the email and this helps with security as well since you can check if its a phishing email from just the short snippet of the content that you can see straight away. There is no real point of displaying the messages and email at the same time as it is okay to do it in two screens. Maybe you can have a double click option which opens the email on a new window for the people that prefer both messages and email but I find it as theirs too much clutter with everything on one page and would make it harder to use for new users. I like the way the attachment is viewed but also makes it feel like their is too much clutter. If you do want to keep the extra panel on the side then it is best to take out the focused emails and other. This makes it even more confusing and messy also you can miss out on important emails from the confusion. Gmail users will find it complicated to use as theirs is like the original and keep to Gmail as they find it confusing to use the new format from what they are used too.
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Anonymous
commented
I find this version as well as the previous version to be very convoluted. I just want simplicity. See what e-mail I have. Open what I want. Discard what I don't want. I really dislike the focused and other inbox as well as the way it creates yet another "folder" within those boxes to group together what it consider to be a certain type of e-mail (Promotions, Newsletters). I don't quite understand the method to this and I don't find it helpful in the slightest, nor do I enjoy having to check 2-4 separate places to see all of my e-mails. The way it filters messages from what's legitimate and what is spam is off as well. There are many things that are very clearly not spam that end up in my spam folder which requires me to remain conscious that I always have to check my spam folder. These newer versions also make the mobile version much more difficult to use. Please go back to the simpler version!
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Sarah Elsley
commented
There are far too many inboxes now. So there are favourites which are split into Focused, other, and Junk.
But then there is also the general inbox which is also split into focused, other, and junk. So there are 6 inboxes in total! I don't need a favourites section, and I'd be inclined to get rid of focused and just get back to a simple Inbox and Junk.
The layout is too confusing with too many menus and options.
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Anonymous
commented
Can we just go back to a single inbox please??? This split between the "Focused" and "Other" is just mangling my messages and they are divided willy nilly between the two with no rhyme or reason.
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Anonymous
commented
Well, I don't have much dissatisfaction with the overall webpage design of this Beta version- vertical or horizontal and add-on feature. However, when this Focused & Other filter came out, I got really frustrated because I don't know where my mails will be 'assigned to' and need to find my mails in 2 places. (totally not good, not efficient) Hence please get rid of this panel and just show the normal, clean and simple Inbox will do. The Spam is doing great, so let it do it's job. =)
By the way, am I the only one who gets the annoying and unnecessary advertisement panel at the right panel??? Please get rid the advertisement slot and if you really want to put them up, please make them smaller enough to view and not blocking the space to read up our mails. Outlook is a tool meant to receive and send emails, not to be misused for business, online games & etc.
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dave
commented
emails missing from Other tab (which was supposed to show all)
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Anonymous
commented
I liked it as it was before the 'focused' and 'other' categories were made available. There's more clicking to be done now. Previously, all you had to do was scroll to find what you wanted to open or not. Now you have to keep clicking back and forth. I don't like it, sorry. However, I do appreciate the efforts you go to to improve. Perhaps you could ask people how they think you could give a better service. Other than that, thank you for being there.
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aaalbedo
commented
I received several important emails this week that never showed up in my inbox (focused or other). I had to search for keywords, and even THEN it only showed my most recent outgoing messages to the person that sent the missing ones; when I clicked on that, it finally did show me the new email (but it still didn;t show up in my inbox). Probably a default setting, but a really idiotic one! How many more emails can't I see right now??? I turned off the beta.
