How to Create an All Documents view in Outlook
Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 March 5th, 2008Unlike Lotus Notes, by default Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 doesn’t have an All Documents view. After migrating from Lotus to Exchange naturally we moved from Lotus Notes to Outlook email client. Doing so one of the first thing many of our users asked about was these feature. Below are the steps to quicky create an All Documents view in Outlook using the Outlook search function.
To create an All Documents view in Outlook:
Step 1: Under the Outlook Mailbox, right click on the Search Folders node and select New Search Folder…
Step 2: From the New Search Folder dialogue box scroll at the bottom and select Create a custom Search Folder and click on the Browse… button
Step 3: In the Name field enter All Documents View
Step 4: Click on the Browse… button to select which folders in Outlook to search for.
Step 5: Ensure there’s a tick for Mailbox - <Username> and Search subfolders Step 6: Hit OKStep 7: Click Yes on the warning button. Outlook search will give this warning if you haven’t specified the criteria of the search.
Step 8: Click OK again
You probably noticed that we skipped the bit were we had to define a criteria for the search. We did this because we didn’t want to filter on our search. We simply wanted every message in a single search folder. Depending on the size of your Outlook mail file (either a pst or ost file) Outlook may take several minutes to perform the search.
To finish off you can drag the search folder onto your Outlook Favorite Folders listings for easy access.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:03 am
[…] posted an article about his here. With our users being so used to the Lotus Notes All Documents view naturally this was one of the […]
March 25th, 2008 at 2:31 am
[…] posted a how-to article on how to create an All Documents View for Outlook 2003 and 2007. (Read: How to Create an All Documents view in Outlook) With our users being so used to the Lotus Notes All Documents view naturally this was one of the […]
April 16th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
This should have been included by default from microsoft. Lotus Notes from IBM has this by default. Nice write up. makes life easier now
April 21st, 2008 at 11:28 pm
thanks for the feedback!
July 21st, 2008 at 7:42 pm
How can you recreate the very useful “Who” column from the Lotus Notes All Documents view? The “Who” column shows the From field for incoming email and the To field for emails you have sent. Is there any way to do this in Outlook 2003? I couldn’t figure out a way. Thanks.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Glad that I came by this page. Migrated today from Lotus Notes to Outlook and I immediately missed the All Documents folder.
One extra thing that can be handy in this specific view, is to add the column “Created” (not to be confused with “Received”) for showing the real chronological order.
To get it, open your beautiful, brand new All Documents folder:
* right-click somewhere in the header row with column names
* select “Field Chooser”
* in the pop-up window, look for the line “Created”
* drag this line to the header row and release at an appropriate location
Greetz,
Walter.
*
August 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Glad that I came by this page. Migrated today from Lotus Notes to Outlook and I immediately missed the All Documents folder.
One extra thing that can be handy in this specific view, is to add the column “Created” (not to be confused with “Received”) for showing the real chronological order.
To get it, open your beautiful, brand new All Documents folder:
* right-click somewhere in the header row with column names
* select “Field Chooser”
* in the pop-up window, look for the line “Created”
* drag this line to the header row and release at an appropriate location
Greetz,
Walter.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Walter,
That’s a great idea! Certainly will find this tip useful.
Thanks for this and thanks for the feedback.