Tip of the week # 609
15 June 2020


Use an intuitive keyboard shortcut to mark your email as though you haven't read it yet (Microsoft Outlook) *

Depending on how you work with your inbox you could end up with Outlook marking your email message as read, while you really only flicked through the list using your up and down arrows, having a quick peak at the text in the Reading Pane. You can change the settings (perhaps I'll write a tip about that at some point) but in the meantime here's a quick way to mark your email as though you haven't read it yet.

You can obviously use the Unread/Read button in the Tags group on the Home tab. Or perhaps you are a "right-mouse clicker" and you select Unread? But sometimes it is just easier to use the keyboard rather than your mouse, especially if it is an intuitive shortcut to mark something "Unread". (You can probably guess?!)

Here's how:

  1. Select the message(s).
  2. Press CTRL + U.

To mark several messages as unread, click the first message, hold down CTRL and click the other message(s). Use the CTRL + SHIFT + arrows to select multiple, adjacent messages.

Related tips

  1. Top ten Microsoft Outlook shortcuts : tip_538.php
  2. Display the total number of messages in a folder, including those you read : tip_532.php
  3. Display your flagged messages in a "For Follow Up" folder - tip_443.php
  4. How to sort your folder list the way you want it - tip_276.php

.


* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.