Insanely bad Outlook 2003 search folders
I just took the leap from Outlook 2000 to Outlook 2003. Gratifyingly, the upgrade was flawless (so far) and pulled all my settings across, even including the SpamBayes plugin which has continued doggedly making spam a dim memory.
However, one of the features that I thought I would like most about 2003, Search Folders, appears to have been implemented in an afternoon by an undergrad arts major. The default views such as "Unread Mail" are of course useless for anyone that filters mail, especially since a lot of unread mail is spam. And you can't customize the criteria for inbuilt views: the button is simply greyed out. It's also hard to restrict the folders you want to scan, since you can either select "recursive" mode for all folders or for none, and then select everything manually, a real problem for people like me that have about 20 folders.
To make it worse, once you've worked out that you need to create your own search folder you can only specify AND for combining criteria. I want to show unread OR flagged mail, which doesn't seem to be supported even in the advanced area (which doesn't actually have an "Unread" field to select anyway, even though other parts of the UI display it). There is a "Unread or For Followup" inbuilt view, but it shows nothing and I can't see what criteria it uses because, surprise surprise, the button is greyed out.
And then, in case I was still in the mood for self-flagellation, it turns out that Outlook 2003 has some insane number of different coloured followup flags you can use, and I cannot match any of them to the ones already in use in my inbox (there's no "faded red" flag icon in the menu, just red and orange).
Since I'd consider myself an expert Outlook user and in a good position to evaluate this product, I hereby award Microsoft -3 out of 10 for usability.
PS: on further investigation ... it gets worse. Trying to sort by unread and then by ascending date just gets ignored - the ascending date part is not there when you go back to "Customize View" no matter how hard you swear at the dialog box. Even better, selecting the "Unread Messages in This Folder" view while in a search folder produces a broken blank message list. Glad this product has shaded buttons, 20 flavours of followup flag and alpha-blended fading mail alerts, or I'd feel ripped off.
However, one of the features that I thought I would like most about 2003, Search Folders, appears to have been implemented in an afternoon by an undergrad arts major. The default views such as "Unread Mail" are of course useless for anyone that filters mail, especially since a lot of unread mail is spam. And you can't customize the criteria for inbuilt views: the button is simply greyed out. It's also hard to restrict the folders you want to scan, since you can either select "recursive" mode for all folders or for none, and then select everything manually, a real problem for people like me that have about 20 folders.
To make it worse, once you've worked out that you need to create your own search folder you can only specify AND for combining criteria. I want to show unread OR flagged mail, which doesn't seem to be supported even in the advanced area (which doesn't actually have an "Unread" field to select anyway, even though other parts of the UI display it). There is a "Unread or For Followup" inbuilt view, but it shows nothing and I can't see what criteria it uses because, surprise surprise, the button is greyed out.
And then, in case I was still in the mood for self-flagellation, it turns out that Outlook 2003 has some insane number of different coloured followup flags you can use, and I cannot match any of them to the ones already in use in my inbox (there's no "faded red" flag icon in the menu, just red and orange).
Since I'd consider myself an expert Outlook user and in a good position to evaluate this product, I hereby award Microsoft -3 out of 10 for usability.
PS: on further investigation ... it gets worse. Trying to sort by unread and then by ascending date just gets ignored - the ascending date part is not there when you go back to "Customize View" no matter how hard you swear at the dialog box. Even better, selecting the "Unread Messages in This Folder" view while in a search folder produces a broken blank message list. Glad this product has shaded buttons, 20 flavours of followup flag and alpha-blended fading mail alerts, or I'd feel ripped off.
posted by Matthew Phillips at
10:23 am
7 Comments:
Assuming you are creating a custom view, to change the AND operators to OR, make all the changes you need in the tabs for the Filter part of the view definition. Then switch over to the SQL tab, click the "Edit these criteria directly" checkbox, change the AND operators to OR and you're done.
Now if they could fix it to I could sort by unread and then by date...
By
Anonymous, at 11:59 pm
I hadn't even gotten to looking at the SQL tab. I guess it's the ultimate mark of desperation to go there anyway. Most of the views didn't have anything in there to start with though. Thanks for the tip though.
By
Matthew Phillips, at 8:30 pm
I feel your pain. The "Advanced Find" is not so advanced, and the search folders suck.
If you create a FILTER VIEW there is a SQL tab. The SQL queries are perfect once you learn the syntax. But views only apply to one folder.
Why isn't the SQL tab available in the Advanced Find and Search Folder criteria? That makes NO sense.
I've hacked with Outlook and created what I call "Better Search Folders". Create a search folder that finds all mail. Then create filter views for that search folder.
Way to much trouble but it works.
By
Anonymous, at 3:27 am
Outlook QueryBuilder.
Please pardon my excitement but I found the Outlook QueryBuilder.
Add this registry key (for Outlook 2003)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\QueryBuilder
Then restart Outlook and you should have another tab in your Advanced Find and Search Folders criteria. And it's easier than writing SQL.
By
Anonymous, at 3:48 am
Cool. I've basically given up on search folders, but this might make them usable. We've also just upgraded Exchange, so that might fix some stupidities.
Whatever I do, Outlook's mail reader will continue to be retarded. No threading, handles multi-part MIME messages by creating russian-doll attachment stacks, etc. I've been experimenting with Thunderbird, a mail reader that does not suck (tm), but it's annoying to have two apps open all the time.
By
Matthew Phillips, at 8:47 am
I know a lot of tools,which works with other types of files. But yesterday I was the Internet and observed there an interesting utility - exchange ost to pst converter. I tried to use it and the program surprised me. It restored my old crashed emails for a minute and without payment as far as I remembered.
By
Alexis, at 6:23 pm
@sean: Wow, thanks for that QueryBuilder tip! I've been having nightmares with the SQL code, but that QueryBuilder option fixed my troubles in a second! I have no freakin clue why though, since what I now did was exactly the same as what I did in the Advanced tab and in the SQL tab, but now all of a sudden it works. Magic!
By
Anonymous, at 7:34 am
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