Outlook sorting

Question

I think I've found an anomaly in outlook's sort interface. Say I wanted to sort the items in the inbox first by flag status and then by received date, so that all flagged emails are at the top. What ends up happening when I save the settings is that the date criterion doesn't apply. Yes, all the flagged messages are at the top but the sort order of the received date column is haphazard rather then ascending or descending as chosen. I just moved to 365 from 2003 where this used to work.

Two other smaller issues. Is there no way to enable six colors of flags anymore? And is there no way to move the flag status column to the first column?

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi @Wayne Gunn ,

Welcome to our forum!

According to my test on my Outlook version2201(Build 14931.20120 ), it can be sorted according to the flag state, and in chronological order.

In order to verify, what detailed version of Outlook are you using?(File > Office Account > About Outlook). Please make sure that you are using the latest version(File > Office Account > Update Options > Update Now)

To work around the issue, reset your view settings(View > Reset view), and select Flag Status again.

If the issue continues, try to repair office from control panel. and test if it works nomally.

• Is there no way to enable six colors of flags anymore?
  Do you mean that you want to assign an email a color category? If so, it may be some color categories were removed, here are the steps to fix it:
  Right-click the email and select category > All categories
  In Color Categories dialog, click New and add the color category you want.
• And is there no way to move the flag status column to the first column?
  This has been the case for this column since it was introduced in Outlook 2003, it is indeed not movable.

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Answer 2

If using Outlook OWA, it syncs with Microsoft To-Do app, so you can view all flagged emails there instead and sort separately. This To-Do feature can be accessed from within the Outlook OWA app at the top right (or alternatively by opening the app itself).

If you really want to work with it in email list view, I recommend using pins instead of flags.

Outlook Desktop however should allow this custom sort in View Settings > Sort