Apply default signature in Windows Live mail

            In Windows Live Mail you can create multiple signatures easily, and you can choose for each message which signature I want append to it. Unfortunately, we end up with no signature at all in most cases. Fortunately, Windows Live Mail allow you to set up a signature that will automatically be added to every email you create.

Apply a Signature Automatically in Windows Live Mail

To set up a default signature in Windows Live Mail:

    * Select Tools | Options from the menu.

 
    * Go to the Signatures tab.

 
    * Make sure Add signatures to all outgoing messages is selected.

 
    * You probably also want to deselect Don't add signatures to Replies and Forwards.

 
    * Now select the signature you want to become the one automatically inserted.

 
    * Click Set as Default.

 
    * Click OK.

These steps can be followed for Windows live mail installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Adding sound background for mail: Live mail

  

                Everything is easier with some music. Reading emails to some tune is certainly nice, but how do you add background music that will automatically play when the recipient opens the message? In Windows Live Mail

Follow below steps to add Background Sound to Emails in Windows Live Mail.

To add background music or sound effects to an email message in Windows Live Mail:

    * Start with a new message in HTML format.

    * Select Format | Background | Sound... from the menu.

    * Use the Browse... button to select the sound file you want to play in the background.

          o Make sure the file is of a supported sound format. 

    * Specify whether you want the sound file to be played continuously or a certain number of times.

    * Click OK.

To change the sound later, select Format | Background | Sound... again from the Windows Live Mail

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Turn OFF/ON email notification sound: Live Mail

                By default, Windows Live Mail will automatically play a sound when it detects new emails and starts downloading them to your computer. This is called the "New Mail Notification" sound, and is configured at the operating system level (in other words, you customize which sounds will play by configuring your Sounds settings in Windows 7 / Vista / Windows XP). 

        But Windows Live Mail allows you to disable the new emails sound if you don't want it to play, without affecting your other email programs. You could want Microsoft Outlook to play the new mail notification sound, but ask Windows Live Mail to remain quiet when new emails arrive. This is possible by turning off the new mail sound option inside Windows Live Mail itself.

Follow these steps to configure your new emails sound settings:

    * If needed, launch Windows Live Mail; once it has opened, click on the "Menu" button (or press Alt+M), and choose "Options" under the dropdown menu.

 

      Click on the menu button in Windows Live Mail
    * When the Windows Live Mail "Options" dialog options, make sure that the "General" tab is selected (it should be by default).
    * Look at the "Send / Receive Messages" section of this tab: the first checkbox reads "Play sound when new messages arrive", and is checked by default.

 

      Email sound options in Windows Live Mail
    * To turn off and (temporarily) disable the new mail sound, uncheck that checkbox and click on the "OK" button to apply the new setting and return to Windows Live Mail.
    * From this point on, Windows Live Mail will not play any sound when it downloads new email messages to your PC. (As an aside, Windows Live Mail will remember your setting, you do not need to re-configure it every time you use the program.)
    * That's all it takes to turn off the new mail sound!

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Outlook: Knowing Mail box size

 

 

 

                    If you use Outlook and have a busy inbox you might want to periodically find out how much space everything is taking. Today we'll take a very quick look at the Mailbox Cleanup feature in Outlook, which will let you see the amount of space being wasted.

With Outlook open, go to Tools \ Mailbox Cleanup.

 

 

 

Now with the Mailbox Cleanup dialog box open click on View Mailbox Size. You can also use this same dialog to easily find old email, or items that are larger than a certain size, so you can delete them and reclaim some space.

 

 

 

In the Folder Size dialog will show the amount of space being taken up on your local machine by each folder. If you are on an Exchange Server just click on the Server Data tab to find out how much space is being taken up on the server.

 

 

 

 Depending on the size and your setup you might want to Easily Compact The Outlook Data File.

These steps can be followed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Outlook 2007: Adding search locations

                      If you need to find an email in Outlook the Search feature is valuable, but it can be annoying just searching the current folder. Here we take a look at adding All Folders, and Deleted Items to Search in  Outlook 2007.

You can also help your search results in Outlook 2007. Click on Tools \ Options.

 

In the Options screen click on the Search Options button.

At the bottom of the Search Options screen check the box to included Deleted Items and All folders under Instant Search Pane if you want that option as well…then click OK.

 If you’re tired of only searching in the current folder when you’re trying to find an email, adding more search options should help speed up the process and make it easier to find what you need.

These steps can be followed for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Outlook 2007: Downloading complete IMAP Account

                      

                 How to make Outlook download the entire message instead of just the headers. You’ll have to navigate through a convoluted set of menus, but it’s really quite simple.

From the Tools menu choose Send/Receive, Send/Receive Settings, and then Define Send/Receive Groups. Or you could just hit the Ctrl+Alt+S shortcut key instead of navigating the ridiculous menus. 

This will bring up the Send/Receive Groups dialog, which has some interesting options that aren’t relevant here. Choose the Edit button instead.
 

Almost there…  now click on your IMAP account in the left-hand pane, and then under the Receive Mail Items section choose either to “Download complete items” or “Use the custom behavior ”.

Personally I’d recommend using the custom behavior and only downloading complete items for the Inbox folder. You’ll have to select “Download complete item including attachments” to flip the switch.

These steps can be followed for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Outlook 2007: Changing Outlook startup folder

                  Outlook 2007 and earlier versions display the Outlook Today page when you first start up, but for most people it’s a fairly useless page since you just want to get to your email anyway.

You can disable Outlook Today easily, or you can use the advanced options to choose a particular folder to start in. You can start by just clicking on the Customize Outlook Today button. 

Then just uncheck the “When starting, go directly to Outlook Today” checkbox, which should set the Inbox as the default startup folder. 

If it doesn’t, or if you want to make outlook display a different folder on startup, open Outlook Options, click on the Other tab, and then click on Advanced Options. 

In this dialog, you can click the Browse button and choose a different folder if you want. You can even choose Search Folders in Outlook 2007, which can be very useful.

 For instance, you could choose the Followup Today search folder to only see items that you’ve flagged to follow up with on the current day. 

These steps can be used for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7. 

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Outlook 2007: Out of Office assistant

      

                    When you know you are going to be out of the office for a few days, you can set up the Out of Office Assistant to reply automatically, letting people know that you are enjoying your vacation while they are sending you emails. You can also add rules to forward messages based on different criteria.

Open Outlook and Click on Tools \ Out of Office Assistant.

 

Next check I am currently Out of the Office and compose a message for the sender. You can include as little or as much information in this box. In this example I wrote a fairly generic reply message.

 

After filling this out you can just click OK or you can continue to add specific rules to the message. To do this click on the Add Rule button.

 

If you want the rule to only apply to a small set of contacts, you can add contacts or a contact list by clicking on the From button and selecting them there. If you want the rule to apply to any incoming email, then select a combination of both “Sent directly to me” and “Copied (Cc) to me”.

You can choose different actions to take for this rule. For instance if the message is coming from your boss you might want to have the message forwarded to another account, such as your mobile. Or you might want to have it reply with a different template. In this example I just chose to have them sent to my Inbox folder.

When you are done click on OK. You can then add another rule if you want to, just remember that the first matching rule in the list will be executed, but the rest of the matching rules will be executed if you don’t check the “Do not process subsequent rules” option. (Notice the options to move the rules up and down in the last screen)

When you’ve completed everything you will be back to the Out of Office Assistant window in Outlook. Once you have verified everything click OK.

 

Now every time you get an email from a specified address the user will automatically get your Auto Reply. This is very useful in the office and in business environments. It allows your customers and co-workers know you are not available and who to contact if they need further assistance.

These steps will work for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7. 

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mark email as read when viewed in Reading pane

 

 

 

 

 

              why the default setting in Outlook 2007 is to not mark items as read until you switch to a different email, which leaves the new mail notification sitting in the system tray even though you’ve clearly read the email.

Turns out there’s a very simple setting for this, where you can mark items as read once you’ve viewed them instead of when the selection changes to a different email.

Just go to Tools \ Options and then click on the Other tab. Click the Reading Pane button to bring up the options.\

 

 

Just select the checkbox on “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane”. You’ll notice that you can’t also select the “Mark item as read when selection changes” box, which seems a little silly, but it’s not important. You might also want to change the number of seconds in this dialog. It doesn’t usually take me 5 seconds to read an email, especially when most of them aren’t important.

Remember that you can always mark an item as read by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Q, which is really the fastest way to mark items as read.

 

These steps can be followed for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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How to Email templates in Outlook 2003

 

               If you have an email you send out every day that contains the same information, or a form that requires users to dictate answers to the same questions – you can create a template in Outlook to help save you time.

 

The template mode will not be available if you have Word set as your email editor, so the first thing we’ll need to do is turn that option off.

Open Outlook Options by choosing Tools \ Options from the menu. Choose the Mail Format tab, and make sure to uncheck the boxes to use Word. 

Now to create our template. Just open a new mail message, choose the person(s) to send it to, a subject line, and a message body. Now you should be able to choose File \ Save As from the menu. 

Choose Outlook Template (.oft) as the file type, and pick a folder and file name to save the template as. 

Now when you go to the location where you saved your template you will have an Outlook Template icon. Just double-click the icon, hit send and you are done! You could also open the template through the File \ New \ Choose Form \ User Templates option as well.

These steps can be followed in Outlook 2003 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7. 

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Outlook 2007: Saving multiple attachments

                  

                    You wish your co-workers and colleagues would send you several documents all zipped into one file, but so often it is not the case.  Here we will look at saving multiple attachments to your hard dive all at once.

Once you receive and email with a bunch of individual attachments in Outlook 2007 click on Other Actions in the Actions section on the Ribbon and scroll down to Save Attachments. 

This will open the Save All Attachments dialog box where you can choose them all or only certain ones by holding down the Shift or Ctrl keys to highlight them.  When you have selected the ones you want just click OK. 

This will open up Windows Explorer so you can choose the directory to save the attachments. 

Now that we have covered that lets look at an even easier way.  Highlight all of the attachments by using Shift + Left Click or Cttl + Left Click, now Right-Click and choose either Save As or Copy.  This allows you to save the attachments to a specific directory or copy them using the Clip Board. 

 

These steps can be followed for Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Outlook 2007: Record journal entries

                One of the more overlooked features in Outlook is the ability to use it as a journal.  You can customize how the journal records information on contacts and it also has the ability to put the actions in a timeline view.

Here is an easy to follow guide to begin using the journal option by recording a manual entry for a meeting and recording the time.

First, go to File \ New \ Journal Entry
 

 

Now in the journal entry window we can enter in pertinent information about the meeting such as time, date, notes, etc. 

Starting the timer comes in handy!  For instance if you’re on a conference call with a customer who pays by the hour.  When the meeting starts just hit “Start Timer” and you will see the stopwatch icon start ticking.  When the meeting is over you can “save and close” or Save As…
 

 
Finally when we go into the Journal we will see a timeline of the entries for the week.

These steps can be followed in Outlook 2007 installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Outlook 2007: Hide when minimized

 

             Some days you might have so many applications running you are not able to keep track of them all.  One of the programs bound to be taking up space is Outlook.  Today we will cover a quick tip that will allow more space on your task bar when you have Outlook Minimized.

You may have noticed that by default when you minimize Outlook it still shows in the taskbar. 

To stop it from showing up right click on the Outlook icon in the notification area next to the clock then select Hide When Minimized. 

Another notification balloon will pop up notifying the change and how to change it back if needed. 

Now there will be additional space on the Taskbar for other programs.  Now you can maximize Outlook by Double Clicking the notification icon or clicking on the notification pop up if that is enabled.

These steps can be followed for Outlook 2007 installed on Windows 7 and Vista

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Useful tips: Web browser in Outlook

                   Most of us spend our valuable time in Microsoft Outlook, reading emails from the our friends, Family, Personnel, Bank related etc. Since you're already in Outlook, why not browse the web a little without switching over to a web browser?

Enable Outlook's Web View

With Outlook open, click on View \ Toolbars and then check Web on the menu.

This will display the Web address bar which you can move to wherever you want in the toolbar area.

Now, just enter any Web address into the bar and the view pane will show the webpage within Outlook using the Internet Explorer engine.  If you’re just looking at the one page just click the Back button and it will return you to the Outlook view.  Or you can explore the entire site and / or surf the web.

These steps works for Outlook installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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Useful tips for Outlook

 

 

 

 

                 After watching the Administrator at work scroll painfully through 10,000 messages in his inbox trying to find one from the right sender in Outlook, it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t realize how easily you can use the keyboard to find a message in a sorted list.

Almost any list control in Windows will let you type the first couple of letters in order to focus the selection on the item that matches in the current sorted column. It’s not exactly a new technique, but judging from today’s experience I felt it was worth sharing.

For instance, in Outlook you can sort by the “From” header by clicking on it.

 

 

And now you can start typing the first couple of letters of a name, for instance I wanted to find messages from Amazon.com so I typed in the first three letters quickly: a, m, a…

 

 

You’ll see that the selection went down to Amazon.com. Obviously this is a contrived example, but you can see the value in using this technique.

These steps can be followed in Outlook installed in Windows XP and Windows 7.

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