What in the World Is Focused and Other for Outlook Email for Android Phones

Anonymous

I use Outlook 2013 for email with Outlook.com because I can't get Gmail to work with my Office 365 Outlook 2013 application. Setting it up with Outlook.com was easy, but unlike Gmail and Yahoo email, I don't see all of my messages. Outlook for Android has some apparently strange categories called "FOCUSED" and "OTHER". Some of my messages are in "focused" and different messages are in "other". I have to click one category and then the other to see all of my messages. Why?

With Gmail and Yahoo on my Android Phone, when I go to my inbox I see ALL of my messages. But with Outlook they are broken up into 2 different apparently useless categories labeled Focused and Other. I went to settings and selected "All" but that didn't help. Can someone please explain:

What does "Focused" mean?
What does "Other" mean?
Can I get rid of the Focused and Other categories so I can see ALL of my email in one inbo x?

Thanks,

RTBT

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Anonymous

Hello Ram Kumar, thanks for your help.

I read the other thread and couldn't agree more with the author. In my opinion, the idea of dividing the inbox into two categories versus having one inbox is pretty dumb. If MS believes there are people who want multiple inboxes, I think they should make it an OPTION as opposed to the default.

Thankfully, I found the option to turn off Focused and use one inbox. For now it appears to be working as I only have 1 Inbox but I'm afraid those silly, confusing categories of Focused and Other will return.

Ram Kumar, thanks so much for your time and assistance.

RTBT

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Anonymous

Hi,

You may refer to the following thread which discusses about similar issue and see if it helps.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook\_com/forum/oemail-oapps/outlook-app-focused-not-wanted/227a4693-3341-43ee-8f4e-583b158fe073

For more information on Focused and Other inbox, refer to the following article.

https://blogs.office.com/2015/01/29/deeper-look-outlook-ios-android/

I look forward to your reply to assist you further.

Thank you.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi Cheryl,

Focused Inbox helps you identify what's most important. To turn off Focused Inbox, follow the steps provided on this link.

Please update us with the status. We will be glad to assist you.

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49 additional answers

Anonymous

2016-11-15T08:05:40+00:00

The focused file is the list of important emails. Microsoft decides what is important to you. You do not. In my case, Microsoft clearly has no idea what is important to me.

Like all programs where some company decides what you want (think about the music that get automatically added to your playlist,) they just have a monkey throw a dart.

In the display settings you can get rid of this and actually see all your emails at once. But this is a step that you wouldn't have to take if Microsoft could accept that you know better than they do what is important to you. That should happen sometime in the year 3123.
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Anonymous

2016-12-17T00:41:26+00:00

The ANSWER is as follows: 1.) INBOX, SETTINGS, SCROLL DOWN TO "MAIL", SWITCH "FOCUSED INBOX" ON or OFF with slide switch to the right (on) or left (off).

There are also options for "Organize mail by Thread" & "Link Preview".

Hope this helps!

Steve M.
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