Only CC’d? Please display in another color
If you receive scads of mails every day, it’s handy to be able to quickly see if each one was sent to you directly, or if you’re just on somebody’s CC list.
In Outlook, here’s how to set up this function:
1. Make sure you’re viewing your Inbox.
2. Use the main menu to select Tools | Organize. The “Ways to Organize Inbox” window will appear above the list with mail.
3. On the left side, you’ll see three options. Select “Using Colors”.
4. At the top right corner in that window, you’ll find an “Automatic Formatting” button “ Select it to open the following dialog:
5. Press the Add button to create a new rule.
6. Name this new rule something like “CC’s Only”:
7. Press the Condition button to display this dialog:
8. Check the ”Where I am” box.
9. Next to that text, select “on the CC line with other people”
(Don’t worry, it will work even if you’re the only one on the CC line.)
10. Press the OK button.
Now that you’ve told Outlook which emails interest you, you just have to specify the font that you’d like to use for these emails.
11. Press the Font button. Select the font, style and color you’d like to use for all CC’d emails. 
12. Press the OK button to close the Font dialog box.
13. Press the OK button to close the Automatic Formatting dialog.
14. Select Tools | Organize from the main menu to hide the “Ways to Organize Inbox” window again.
After you’ve done this, any CC’d email will be easily recognized in your inbox. This makes it faster and easier to sift through your incoming mails.
Enjoy!
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36 comments
Awesome tips. Thanks
Nice one - this’ll save a lot of headaches. Thanks
This is really nice and it is retro active. I am loving this version.
Thanks for the tip. After this rule is applied, is it possible to sort your messages by color in the Inbox? For example is there something I can use in ‘Format Columns’?
Trying to help my boss with his overwhelming amount of emails… this is one feature I had no knowledge of and that will definitely help me in my efforts! Looking forward to discovering more…
Thanks so much.
LH
@John - what you could probably do is create a rule that marks messages that you are only CC’d in as non-urgent, or assign them to a specific category.
You could then sort your inbox based on the urgent-flag, or by category. I hope this helps.
THIS IS GREAT!!! I am going to forward this to my co-workers
Thanks!
super cool! great help!
this is great.
This is a great feature to have!!!
Does this make life easier! Thanks
Awesome!!!!!!!! Thanks!
Superb.. Cool..Awesome!!!!!!!! Thanks!
Terrific tip! Thanks!
One question:
Seems I accidentally set it up to color messages received from a specific person. How can I cancel the rule so his messages appear in the default color? Choosing Auto doesn’t seem to work
Hi Benzi,
You’re welcome - I’m glad you all like it!
If you go to View | Current View | Customize Current View, you should see the Customize View Dialog.
Press the button Automatic Formatting… to see the rules that are created for this view. Your new color messages rules should be visible there, too. You can then swith a rule off, or just delete it.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Taco Oosterkamp
Taco,
When I go to View | Current View | Customize Current View and Press the button Automatic Formatting, I don’t see my new color rules –
all I see is the Automatic Formatting window, with:
Unread messages
Unread group headers
Submitted but not sent
Expired e-mail
Overdue e-mail
but nothing about the colors I set for CC-only or other conditions
Hi Benzi,
If I create a rule like I described in this post, I do see that rule in the Automatic Formatting Window. I just tried it again to be absolutely sure.
If that doesn’t work the same in your situation, you may want to check with your system administrator or somebody else who can take a look at your computer. If anything else comes to my mind, I’ll let you know.
- Taco Oosterkamp
Thanks Taco — I don’t know why, but when I tried it again I saw the rules. Maybe I had the focus on tasks or something else when I clicked View | Current View | Customize Current View.
@Benzi - yes, that sounds like a logical explanation. Glad that it worked for you after all.
Thanks this info will help me a lot in giving priority to answer my mails
Can I just CC someone on a meeting invite? I thought we used to be able to but I do not see where to do it now.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Karen, check this: http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/ccmeeting.htm
Voor de Nederlanders onder ons: de optie ‘Tools | Organize’ in het hoofdmenu van Outlook heet in het nederlands: ‘Extra |Indelen. De rest van de instructies zijn ook in het engels wel duidelijk volgens mij.
Does this (only cc’d?) also work with Outlook 2007?
I’m using Outlook 2007. When I tried this, some of the emails in my inbox which have me addressed in the “To” line are also color-coded, not just those emails for which I’m only Cc’d. Help? Thanks.
@Jacky - yes, I use Outlook 2007 to describe these steps.
@Dave - could it be that you are both on the To-line and the Cc-line when this happens? Otherwise you may want to check the exact rules that you have set up in Outlook. I wouldn’t know why this would happen I’m afraid.
Taco and Jacky, thanks for responding. I just checked Outlook again, and it appears that I set up the rule correctly. I color-coded the emails with me as a Cc to appear in green. It’s easier to first describe which emails appear in default black:
1. Emails sent only to me (my address is all that is in the To line, no one else is Cc’d).
2. Emails sent to me and others, with no one Cc’d.
3. Emails sent to me as part of a generic alias, with no one Cc’d.
4. Some emails sent with my name in the To line, and others in the Cc’d line.
So, all would be fine and dandy (except for item 4 above) if that were the whole story, assuming the green emails were working as they should. Here is the list of emails which appear in green, which should only be those showing my name (alone or with others) in the Cc line:
1. Emails sent to me with my name in the To line, Cc’d to others (top email of a thread)…see 4 above…some are black, some are green…
2. Emails sent to me with my name in the To line, Cc’d to others (not part of a thread)…see 4 above…
3. Emails sent to me with my name in the Cc line (this one is actually correct!)
So, I’m still stumped. Not sure if this added info is helpful or not. I have also turned off all other color-coding options except the Cc green option, and the results remain the same.
Any more ideas? I’ve tried every option I could think of.
Thanks!
Taco and Jacky,
I FIXED IT!!! With a little wrangling and few work-arounds. Here’s what worked for me:
1. For the Cc condition, I do NOT check the box “Where I am on the CC line with other people” in the Filter screen.
2. Go to Advanced in the Filter screen and define three CC field entries for special criteria. In the first CC field, I entered my last name in lower case. In the second Cc field, I entered my last name with the first letter capitalized. In the third Cc field, I entered my last name and first name, with the first letters of both names capitalized. All this is probably overkill on the rules, but I wanted to make sure I captured all the possible options for the Cc line, not knowing what Bill Gates hath wrought here.
Result? It works like your original rule should have worked for me. Not sure if this is a problem with our organizaiton’s implementation of Outlook 2007, or if it could be seen by others.
Whew! I’m happy now.
Hi Dave, glad to hear that you fixed it and it now works for you. I’m still not sure why it didn’t work in the first place, but at least it got you thinking and tinkering
Enjoy.
This is a fantastic tip!
My boss does not want to see Outlook meeting requests in his inbox. Is there a way to set up rules in his email so those emails go to a seperate folder?
Hi Julie,
Yes, it looks like you can. I haven’t tried it, but this looks promising.
1. From the Outlook (2007) main menu, choose: Tools | Rules and Alerts.
2. Then click ‘New Rule…’.
3. Select ‘Check messages when they arrive’, and press ‘Next >’.
4. Select ‘which is a meeting invitation or update’, and press ‘Next >’.
5. Select ‘move it to the specified folder’, then click the link ’specified’ at the bottom of the screen.
6. Select the folder you want to use, and press the ‘OK’, then press ‘Next >’.
7. Press ‘Next >’ again.
8. Specify a name for your rule, then press ‘Finish’.
That should do it.
Please let me know if this helps.
- Taco Oosterkamp
Thanks, it works and will be very useful!
Perfect! Very helpful, thank you.
Taco,
Over the years, I have saved around 35,000 e-mails in my system. Is there a way to compare the e-mails for exact duplicates so I can delete everything but the last e-mail in each trail and cut down this number? Just searching for the Subject line match isn’t assurance that all the e-mails in the trail contain the exact same information. Is there a short-cut or tool to do this? Thanks, constance
Hi Constance,
I am not aware of such a tool, but I have never searched for it either. It would be quite a job to build such a tool in my opinion, because of all the variations in which text can appear.
My own approach is to just store all the e-mails (except for obvious spam) that I receive. I have an archive with 10 years of e-mails. I store them on my Exchange server in separate folders per year, but you can store them any way you want as long as you make sure that you make backups if you want them.
And if you are short on megabytes, you can also sort a folder on the Size of the messages. That way, you can easily delete the ones that take up most space (for instance because of huge attachments). If you want to search for really big messages throughout multiple folders, use Ctrl+Shift+F.
I hope this helps,
Taco Oosterkamp