Updated December 2, 2011

Working with the Unread Mail Folder

The Unread Mail Search folder (usually just referred to as Unread Mail or the Unread Mail folder) is one of the cooler features Microsoft added to Outlook when they released Outlook 2003. It has persisted in basically the same form right up to Outlook 2010.

When you click the Unread Mail folder icon, Outlook 2010 conducts a search of all the mail folders in your Inbox, looking for any messages that are marked as “Unread.” It displays all of these messages, regardless of which folder they are in, as if the messages were in the Unread Mail folder.

How the Unread Mail Folder Helps You

This is a very good thing, and here’s why. Outlook allows you to create rules that move messages into folders other than the Inbox. This happens as soon as the messages arrive, and before you read them. That’s great because it lets you organize your mail into different folders until you are ready to deal with it.

Think about it. If you are working on Project XYZ right now, do you really want to have to read a message about Project ABC just to get it out of the way? Rules allow you to have Outlook put all of Project XYZ’s mail in one folder and Project ABC’s in another, so you can concentrate on one thing at a time.

I like to use rules to separate business and personal messages. The work-related ones stay in the Inbox, while messages from friends and relatives all get moved to their own folders when they arrive. This way I can see the work-related messages (which are typically more urgent) right away, with all the personal stuff safely stashed out of sight until I have time for it.

This brings us back to search folders. Sometimes you will just want to see the messages you haven’t read yet, regardless of which project they are related to. But if Outlook is putting everything into folders for you automatically, you don’t have an easy way to find all the unread messages. You would have to create a search that goes through all the folders looking for unread messages.

Or you could use the Unread Mail folder. This search is exactly what the Unread Mail folder does for you. But instead of you having to create the search each time you need it, you can click the Unread Mail folder icon to do that search instantly.

To give you even quicker access, you can drag the Unread Mail folder from the “Search Folders” folder (yes, the terminology for this is clumsy) into the Favorites section of the Navigation Pane. Now finding all the unread messages is just a quick, one-click process.

Wait! Where did my Unread Mail folder go?

So the Unread Mail folder helps you find the messages you need to deal with quickly and easily. This is a very useful, time-saving feature. Except, of course, if you can’t find your Unread Mail folder! Now I know the idea that you can’t find the folder that helps you find all the stuff in other folders that you haven’t read yet seems crazy.

But sometimes this important folder just goes missing. No one seems to know why, and I believe that there are a few different things that cause this. Regardless of why it happens, I’m constantly getting messages from my site visitors or students saying that they do not have an Unread Mail folder. It isn’t in their “Search Folders” folder. And it isn’t in the “Favorites” section of the Navigation Pane. It is just missing.

By the time they get around to writing to me about it, people are usually pretty upset that they can’t find the darn folder. But fortunately for everyone involved, there’s an easy solution to the problem. I show them how to make a new Unread Mail folder. Would you like to learn how too?

How to Create a New Unread Mail Folder

It takes only seconds to create a new copy of the Unread Mail folder. Follow these steps to create a new Unread Mail folder in Outlook 2010:

1. Click Mail in the Navigation Pane (or press CTRL+1). This takes you to the “Mail” view.
2. In the Navigation Pane, right-click the Search Folders folder.
3. In the shortcut menu that appears, click New Search Folder. This opens the “New Search Folder” dialog box shown below.





4. In the “Select a Search Folder” list, under the “Reading Mail” heading, select Unread Mail.
5. At the bottom of the box, under “Customize Search Folder,” ensure that the “Search mail in” field contains the name of the email account that needs the “Unread Mail” folder restored.

Note: If you have multiple different email accounts with their own folder sets, this is where you can customize the folders to show the unread messages from each. Under the Customize Search Folder heading you will see a box containing a list of the different accounts you can search. By repeating the procedure for each account and selecting each one at a time in this box, you end up with one search folder for each account.

6. Click OK to close the dialog box and return to the “Mail” view.
7. You should now see an Unread Mail folder under the “Search Folders” folder. Note that you may need to double-click Search Folders to see the folders under it.
8. Drag the new folder to the “Favorite Folders” section of the Navigation Pane for easier access.

That’s it. Your new folder is ready to use. Click the Unread Mail folder icon in “Favorite Folders” and give Outlook a moment to populate it with all the unread messages.

Customizing the Unread Mail Folder

By this point you should have one Unread folder for each set of email folders you want to be able to search easily. But you might want to customize them a bit. One thing is that by default, Outlook gives all the Unread Mail folders the same name, which can get a bit confusing! For another, you might choose not to have an Unread Mail folder check all the possible folders in the account.

You might, for example, have a folder where you send some kind of routine messages that you need to keep but don’t really care to read. You can exclude any folders you wish from the search results. Here’s how you do both of these customizations.

1. Right-click the Unread Mail folder that you want to customize. This opens a shortcut menu.
2. Click Customize This Search Folder. This opens a Customize dialog box like the one below.




3. At the top of this dialog box, you can change the name of this search folder.
4. At the bottom of this dialog box you can see a list that contains the names of the folders that this search folder will include when it looks for unread messages. To change this list, click the Browse button. This opens the dialog box shown below.





5. Select the folders you want searched and click OK when you are satisfied. This returns you to the first customize dialog box.
6. Click OK to return to the main Outlook window.

From here you can:

Return to the top of this Unread Mail Folder page.

Go to the Outlook 2010 Tips for Mail and Contacts page.

Go to the main Outlook 2010 Tips page.

Go to the Outlook 2010 home page.

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