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

Anonymous
2015-06-15T15:45:34+00:00

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

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

Outlook | Outlook for mobile | Outlook for Android | For business

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Anonymous
2015-06-16T13:48:53+00:00

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
2015-06-16T05:27:07+00:00

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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Anonymous
2017-05-12T16:32:48+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2016-11-06T21:10:03+00:00

    Thank you Dracinos,  I would prefer the old way of keeping emails, I am going to wait a week or so if it stays the way it is now I will be getting a new email account,  the focused tab is useless!!

    Thank you again Dracuno

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-06T16:53:14+00:00

    I had the same issue, wondering where all my emails suddenly disappeared to. Thanks!

    I agree.. It's a pretty awful feature, and the worst of all is the implementation. (It very well might get better as you use the filter, as it claims to, I have no idea).

    It filters out tons of important emails.. (Like bills/reciepts?) So it's hard to actually USE the view for anything useful when you can't be confident that it does what it's supposed to. (I don't even exactly know what it's supposed to do? Is it meant to filter out things like receipts?).

    But the real issue is that Microsoft decided to make this setting that filters out your emails a default setting.. I mean, even an annoying popup requesting to turn it on would be better, despite how horrible those popups are.. And when most users immediately exit out of that popup without reading it, it should stay off. Maybe a 'What's New' tab for the people that actually want more functionality, instead of just defaulting it on.

    Google is no better on that, their filters were enabled for me by default.. But here's the difference that made it so I'm whining about Microsoft here, but didn't whine about Gmail: The Gmail one works.

    It doesn't matter how (probably due to all Google's stalking); in the end, the Microsoft one does not work right out of the box (or at all?). If it does work, it requires you to use the broken filter for a while until it learns to work for you.

    It's also not obvious.. I look at my hotmail page and what looks like the exact same inbox as before.. The only visible difference is there's a word that says 'Focused' next to the word 'Inbox' (I had no idea what the heck that meant), and there's a ton of emails missing? Really?

    It's obvious that this is kinda to catch up with Gmail and all it's better-than-outlook features, yet they couldn't look at Google's implementation and see how to do it? I'm sure every Microsoft employee has a Gmail account.. It's very obvious in Gmail that your emails are being filtered. There are big tabs above your inbox with numbers next to them indicating that there is something there, and it's in tab format, and immediately above your inbox, so altogether it's extremely obvious at first glance that your email is being filtered into those different tabs.

    So, it's a setting.. That got enabled on my email account by not me, it doesn't work properly, it removed a bunch of emails from my inbox, and on top of that, it's not even obvious that it is even activated!

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