Basic Outlook 2007 Email Activities

You can control when Outlook checks for new e-mail messages. Do the following to automatically receive e-mail on a schedule:

1. Select Options from the Tools menu.
2. Click the Mail Setup tab.
3. Click Send/Receive.
4. Select the right Group Name.
5. Check the box next to Schedule an automatic send/receive every.
6. Enter the number of minutes (up to 1440 minutes, which is 24 hours to save you the math).
7. Check the box next to Perform an automatic send/receive when exiting, if you want to turn on that option.
8. Click Close.

You can send/receive e-mail messages manually by clicking the "Send/Receive" button in the "Standard" toolbar or pressing "F9."

You may need more time to write an e-mail or need to run off for a meeting or an appointment while in the middle of writing an e-mail. Save the e-mail as a draft to ensure you don't lose it even if you plan to return to the e-mail before shutting down the computer.

You can save a draft by clicking the disk icon at the top of the e-mail. If you accidentally close the e-mail, don't worry. Outlook asks if you want to save a copy, click "Yes" to save the e-mail to the Drafts folder. To review or open your draft message, click Draft folder from the Navigation Pane to display your saved drafts.

Note: All of your sent e-mail messages appear in the Sent folder. Click the Sent folder in the Navigation Pane to review your messages.

On occasion, users accidentally delete an e-mail they need to keep. Thankfully, Outlook doesn't erase them for good. Instead, it moves deleted e-mail messages into the Deleted Items folder. Outlook doesn't permanently delete e-mails unless you empty the Deleted Items folder or delete the item from the folder. Restore a deleted item by opening the Deleted Items folder and moving the message into another folder.

You can delete a selected e-mail by clicking the X from the Standard toolbar or press the Delete key. For currently open e-mails, delete the message by clicking the Delete icon from the Actions group in the e-mail Ribbon.

To permanently delete an e-mail from Delete Items, do the following:

1. Open the Deleted Items folder.
2. Select the message or hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple messages.
3. Press Delete.
4. Click Yes when Outlook asks if you want to delete the item.

Go into the Navigation Pane, right-click "Deleted Items" folder and select "Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder" to delete everything manually. If you prefer to automatically empty the Deleted Items folder every time you close Outlook, do the following:

1. Select Options from the Tools menu.
2. Select the Other tab.
3. Check the box under General next to Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting.
4. Click OK.

Next time you exit Outlook, you'll receive a message asking if you want to delete all the items from the Deleted Items folder. This way you have some control on occasions when you may not want to empty the folder.