Trying to distinguish between the emails directly sent to me and which ones I was just being Cc’d into in my Outlook Inbox used to take me a heap of time. I’d need to wade through each one and read the information to decide which ones were the most urgent to respond to and which ones were more for me to just keep an eye on.
That was until I learned a simple way to find out straightaway. What changed? I applied a simple conditional rule that allowed me to color code my CC’d emails.
What to do:
- In your Microsoft Outlook account’s Inbox, select View settings from the top menu then Conditional formatting. Now In the top right-hand corner select Add rule.
- Now from the drop-down menu under Condition select “I’m on the Cc line.“
- For the name field type “I’m CCd.“
Dominic Bayley / Foundry
- Now, next to Select the font color, select a color (I selected red) and click Save. From here on, emails that you’re CC’d into will appear as that color and will be so much easier to spot.
Emails I’m Cc’d into now appear with red text (the test email in this image)
Dominic Bayley / Foundry
You can apply similar conditions with other rules, so be sure to have a play around to see what’s possible.
I hope that’s made it a lot easier to tell which emails you can just read, and which ones are requiring your urgent attention. That’s a wrap for this tip. If you want more tips like this one delivered directly to your inbox twice weekly be sure to sign-up to our PCWorld Try This newsletter.