Everyone has their own favorite way of keeping important email close at hand – marking unread, flagging, or filing in a folder. But each system has drawbacks. The new release of Hotmail solves this problem once and for all by making a simple and elegant change to the way flags work. Now, when you flag an email, that email gets pinned to the top of your Inbox, so it’s always right there – instantly available. The new release of Hotmail is rolling out now and will be available to all our customers within a few weeks.
Finding important email
We looked at what people are really doing in their inboxes and found some very interesting trends. We found that almost everyone has a way to mark certain messages as “important,” and we found an approach that we believe improves the experience for everyone.
Mark Unread
One of the most popular ways of identifying messages that you want to return to is by marking them as unread, and then using the “unread filter” to view them. This works fairly well, since “mark unread” is well-supported in virtually every email client, and you even have keyboard shortcuts to make it fast and easy. But there’s a big problem with this method: new mail that you receive is automatically marked as unread. So your Inbox can quickly become cluttered, and it can be hard to find those important messages.
Move to folder
Another way to keep track of important messages is to move them to a folder, perhaps one called “Important”, and then visit that folder periodically. There are two problems with this approach. First, you have to choose between filing a message as “Important” or filing it where it belongs (perhaps your “Shopping” folder). Second, you have to remember to go check the folder!
Flag
Flags are also commonly used to track important messages. Most email services and clients support flags. But flags have their own problems. Just like folders, you have to remember to check the flagged folder or Quick View. And flagging a message still leaves it in the message list, which can keep your Inbox cluttered.
Making flags work
Hotmail has made a simple and elegant change to the way flags work. Now when you flag an email, three things happen:
Here’s a peek at my Inbox, with a few messages flagged:
- It immediately moves to the top of your Inbox
- It is marked as flagged, just like before
- It shows up in the Flagged Quick View, just like before
The flagged emails are right at the top of my Inbox where I can find them easily. Unflagging a message makes it go back to where it came from in the message list, and it’s easy to flag or unflag a message just by clicking on the flag icon in the message list. Flagged messages show up at the top of the Inbox even if they are in other folders, which makes it easy to stay organized and still keep important messages right up front.
The new Flagging isn’t for everyone
We think the new flagging behavior is a simple and elegant solution to keeping on top of your most important email. But we also realize that some people loved the way that flags worked before and don’t want any change. No problem! You can get the old flag behavior back instantly just by closing the flagged area at the top of your Inbox.
First, collapse the flagged area by clicking on the collapse chevron:
Then, click on the close box:
That’s it! Now your flags behave just as they did before.
If you want to turn the new flag behavior back on later, just go to options, and click on “Flagging” under the “Customizing Hotmail” section:
Power users want it all
Some power users will want to use the new flagging behavior without giving up the old flag behavior. They want it all! Typically, these folks were using flags to identify messages that they want to come back to later, but that aren’t necessarily important, and they want to keep that behavior. But they like the idea of having important messages show up at the top of the Inbox. So they really need two different behaviors.
Hotmail has three new features that make this easy: personal categories, custom Quick Views, and customized Instant Actions.
Now this is definitely for power users, but then again, power users are usually the folks who want it all! Let’s see how it works:
First, we’ll create a category for “messages to come back to later” – let’s call it “For Review.” In the folder list on the left-hand side of your Inbox, just click on “New category” under “Quick views” and then type “For Review”:
Next, we’ll go to our Flagged messages by clicking on the Flagged Quick View. We’ll select all the messages and then categorize them as “For Review” using the new Category menu. Just select all the messages, then click on the Categories menu, click the checkbox next to “For Review” then click “Apply” at the bottom of the menu:
Now that we have all of our “For Review” messages properly categorized, we can un-flag them. With the same messages selected, just click on the “Mark as” menu and select “Unflagged”:
Perfect! Now we have all our old flagged messages in a new Quick View “For Review.” One last thing to do: Make it easy to mark new messages as “For Review” in just one click. For that, we’re going to customize the Instant Actions in the Inbox. We’ll make a new Instant Action to add the ‘For Review’ Category, and we’ll put the icon for this new Instant Action right next to the flag icon. Just go to Options, click on “Instant Actions” under “Customize Hotmail”, then click the “Add Actions” menu and select “Categorize” and select “For Review” as the category to use. You can use “Move up” and “Move down” to position your instant action where you want it, and then click Save.
That’s all there is to it! Now we’ve got it all: Flags to keep our most important messages at the top of the Inbox, a new “For Review” Category for those messages that we want to come back to later, and both “Flag” and “For Review” as Instant actions that we can access in a single click.
Hotmail is the best place to manage your email
The new flag behavior is rolling out now as part of the release that also adds new features for managing Newsletters, Deals, and other notifications. We expect the release to be in the hands of all of our customers in the next few weeks.
We hope you enjoy the new flagging behavior and all the other new features for managing your email. Let us know what you think – we love the feedback. And thanks for using Hotmail.
Dick Craddock - Group Program Manager, Hotmail
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