How to convert your inbox into a to-do list by snoozing the emails in Microsoft Outlook

Do you using Microsoft Outlook? Do you, like me, have a mound of emails that need to be dealt with, but not today? Perhaps next month or next week. Great, you can flag them but then you get loads of reminders that you then have to open as you can’t leave them sat there. I’ve used a system called Boomerang. Great for ‘snoozing emails’ and returning them to your inbox at the right time. However, it’s expensive!

You can use the snooze functionality in Outlook Online but this doesn’t work for the Microsoft Outlook client i.e. the software we work on in business.

Emails: Still an inevitable way of communication

Emails are still considered a dominant way of communications. Microsoft Outlook is more popular than anything for email and collaboration. You may be using various direct tools like Quick Steps, Rules and Categories to organise your emails in outlook. But if you really want to have a clean inbox and be organised, then this is a great hack!

Have you ever heard of snoozing of emails?

Snooze or remind me later tool available in various email organising applications like Boomerang for Gmail, MailButler for Apple Mail, Inbox by Google. When you’re snoozing an email, it disappeared from inbox for a while and reappears at the specified time or after specific time period. You never miss important deadlines for actions on the email.

Can I snooze an email in Microsoft Outlook?

No but, yes but, no but 🙂 There is no direct snooze tool available In Outlook but there is away around this. To do this you need to create a new view of your inbox in outlook with filters.

And here it is.

1. Create a new snooze view

Click on View tab.

Click Change View.
Select Save Current View As a New View… from the menu.

Give a name to the new view like Snooze Email or To-do list View.
Select All Mail and Post Folders option from the radio button.
Click OK.

This new view is not compulsory to create but this creation will give you the option to go back to your original view whenever you want (i.e. to see all your flagged mails).

2. Apply filters

Click on View Settings under the View tab.

Click on Filter… button.

Click on Advanced tab.
To define a criterion, select the Field > Frequently-used fields > Due Date.

Select does not exist Condition from the drop-down list.
Press Add to List.

To add another criterion, select the Field > Frequently-used fields > Due Date.
Select On or before Condition from the drop-down list.
In Value field, type Today.
Press Add to List.
To add the third criterion, select the Field > Frequently-used fields > Flag Status.
Select not equal to Condition from the drop-down list.
In Value field, select Completed.
Press Add to List.
Click OK.

As soon as you press OK, all the email with due dates provided or completed flag will disappear from your inbox. Mail with due dates will reappear on your inbox on the due date.

3. Apply Flags

Right-click on the flag (symbol) against the top-most email in your inbox.
Select an appropriate option (when do you want to reappear the email in the inbox?)
Just to remind you that setting an item as due to This Week will set the reappear/due date to the upcoming Friday and Next Week will set it to the following Monday. You can choose Custom… to set any specific date you want to have it reappear as well, even telling Outlook to throw in a reminder if you like.

How to snooze the whole email conversation?

If you are using the conversation view in the outlook, follow few more steps.

1. Open the conversation by clicking on the triangle on the left.

2. Select the subject line of the email conversation.

3. Apply flag to the subject line (whole email conversation).

Start Snoozing Email

Once you have applied filter, all you need to do is is flag it. It will reappear when you set it to.

If you ever want to see all the emails again, go back to View tab and change to your original view.

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