Brackets in Outlook.com Interface

Question

Looking at my Inbox page in Outlook.com, why are there brackets around the number indicators for the Draft and Junk folders in the left folders pane?

Answer 1

In Outlook.com and Outlook on the web, the Drafts and Junk (Junk Email) folders are designed to show the total number of items in the folder (both read and unread) rather than just the unread count. These folders behave differently from most other folders, which typically display only the number of unread messages.

Because of this special behavior, the number indicator for Drafts and Junk is visually distinguished (for example, by brackets) to reflect that it represents the total item count, not just unread messages.

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References:

• Display the total number of messages in a folder in Outlook
• Working with message folders in Outlook.com
• Working with message folders in Outlook on the web
• Get help with Outlook.com

Answer 2

Yes. I was wondering why those two folders show brackets, but none of the others do.

Answer 3

I saw this too today. Is it new?

Answer 4

Hi!

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Can I confirm, are you referring to these numbers as seen below?

Example:

Drafts [2] → You have 2 unsent draft messages.

Junk Email [8] → There are 8 messages currently in the Junk folder.

If this is the case, those numbers are indicators on the specific folder like for Drafts[2] that means you have 2 pending/unsent messages. Also, Junk indicates you have 8 messages inside the folder.