I am pleased to announce we have released an updated version of Outlook Connector 12.1. This version addresses a few issues that were reported since the December release of 12.1. For details on what has changed in this update, please see the Frequently asked questions about Outlook Connector 12.1 KB article. Update availability If you are using the 12.0 version of the Outlook Connector, or if you had already installed the original version of Outlook Connector 12.1 (version 12.0.6414), you will be...

Recently, we posted information on the Outlook blog about a bug in the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta that increases the message size of some e-mails messages sent from the Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta. The Office team has been hard at work building a fix for this issue, which is available immediately. Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 32-bit Office 2010 Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 64-bit Office 2010 This fix prevents future messages from consuming unnecessary space, but doesn’t resize existing...

We're excited to announce that you can chat with your Google friends directly from Outlook.com. With this feature, the next time you're reading an email from someone who uses Gmail, you can reply with a quick chat right from your Outlook.com inbox. And if you're working together on an Office document from SkyDrive, you can send an instant message to a Google contact with just a click. We're rolling out Google chat integration now, so look for it in your inbox over the next couple of days.

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Did you know that you can use Automatic Formatting rules in Outlook to help you triage your mail with c o l o r? For example, you can make all of the mail sent directly to you blue, or all of the mail from your boss extra large . That way, when you look at your e-mail first thing in the morning, the most important e-mails pop out: How to set up Automatic Formatting Rules The easiest way to turn on automatic formatting is to go to the Tools menu and click Organize… A pane will appear above the mail...

Over the past few months, we have shared our excitement about the new features of Outlook 2010, such as Quick Steps, Conversations, and the Contact Card. Our team is proud to announce that Outlook and the rest of Office 2010 are available in retail stores and online today. Thank you to the millions of you who downloaded and tried our Beta and provided feedback. Get a trial or buy it today at www.office.com ! The Outlook 2010 Team

On the Outlook team, we are frequently asked: “what is the ‘right way’ to use Outlook?” Sure enough, there is no “right way” to work in Outlook—but, as the product team, we did design it with certain best practices in mind. Specifically, there are some best practices that make you more efficient at getting your job done while using Outlook, including: how to set up Outlook (layout, rules, folders, etc.), how to best process e-mail messages to “ tame your Inbox ” the importance of doing a daily review...

Conversations in Microsoft Outlook 2010 are an effective way to manage your e-mail messages. We hope you enjoyed the videos that we shared with you. If you are a power user of Outlook, you might want to tweak some settings to make Conversations work even better for you. There are four options available to customize conversations: · Show Messages from Other Folders · Show Senders above the Subject · Always Expand Conversations · Use Classic Indented View . To see these features, on the View tab, in...

Next time someone sends you an attachment, instead of double-clicking, try single-clicking on it. Outlook 2007 has a great new feature that previews an attachment when you single-click on it: Outlook can preview many common types of files. Images work great, as do files created in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio. If you are using Windows Vista you can also preview audio and video files. With Adobe Reader 8.1 installed, you can even preview PDF files. Many previewers allow you to interact with...

The recent release of Microsoft Office 365 is a great opportunity for small and medium businesses to get the power of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server together, for a lower cost than ever. If you’ve been using a POP3 or IMAP email account from your Internet service provider (ISP) or an email hosting service here are some reasons to try Microsoft Exchange Online with Office 365. The Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 that you already have works with Office 365. There’s...

One of the powerful things that Outlook can do is help you arrange your data in interesting ways. Outlook's Field Chooser is a great tool that helps you to add any Outlook field to your view, which you can then use to sort your data. Here’s an example involving contacts.  Suppose you meet a new friend and add them to your Outlook contacts. A week later, you are throwing a party and you want to invite them, but you can’t remember their name! But since you know you just added them...