Email Format

Question

My email view has batched monthly mail and I cannot return to the orignal format which has the latest email by date under focused and other/

Answer 1

1. Close Outlook
2. Click Start
3. Type Run
4. Press Enter
5. In the Open dialog, type: outlook.exe /cleanviews
6. Press Enter
7. Outlook will open with views set to default

Answer 2

Hi @Joe Majors,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

When your Inbox shows “batched” headers like Today / Yesterday / Last Month, Outlook’s grouping by Date is turned on.

This happens because Outlook automatically groups by Date when Show in Groups is enabled, creating headers by periods (Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month).

Here are a few steps that often help:

1/ Keep Focused Inbox (optional):

If you want to continue using Focused/Other, ensure it’s on: View tab > Show Focused Inbox.

You’ll see the two tabs at the top.

Reference: Focused Inbox for Outlook

2/ Turn off monthly/date grouping:

On the View tab, in Arrange By, uncheck Show in Groups.

This removes Today/Yesterday/Last Month headers and returns to a plain list.

Reference: Group or ungroup messages in your Inbox

3/ Clear any manual Group By rules:

In View > View Settings > Group By… > clear Automatically group according to arrangement and set Group items by: None > OK.

4/ Sort by newest on top:

View > View Settings > Sort items by > choose Received and Descending > OK.

This ensures the latest messages appear first.

5/ Reset the folder view (quick fix):

If the above feels fiddly, use View > Reset View or Change View > Compact.
To apply your preferred view to other folders, Change View > Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders….

6/ Advanced reset (resets all custom views as Derrick Rose mentioned):

Close Outlook > press Win+R and run outlook.exe /cleanviews

Please note that this clears all custom views across Outlook and restores defaults, you should be careful when consider using this.

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this.   

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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