Manually Pin Emails in Outlook
Has an important message ever sunk to the bottom of the deep sea that is your Outlook inbox, causing you to forget about it? Many other users have experienced the same issue, not knowing that it can be easily avoided.
Let's start by explaining how to pin emails in the Outlook app for the web, desktop, and mobile manually. Manual pinning is a great option when you want to quickly bring attention to an important message by moving it to the top of your inbox and keeping it there regardless of how many new messages you receive.
On the Web
The Outlook app for the web, also known as Outlook.com, can be accessed from any web browser, and it provides a simplified interface for managing your emails. Here’s how to manually pin messages in it:
- Log in to your inbox at https://outlook.live.com/.
- Locate the message you want to pin and hover your mouse cursor over it.
- Click the Pin icon in the top-right corner of the message preview. Alternatively, you can open the message and click the Pin / Unpin button in the ribbon.
💡 Tip: To pin messages in Outlook in bulk, you need to select all emails you want to pin by clicking their icons and then click the Pin / Unpin button in the ribbon.
On Desktop
Even though the Windows and Mac versions of the Outlook app are far more sophisticated than the web version, it won't take you any longer to learn how to pin emails in the Outlook desktop app.
Mac
- Launch the Outlook app for Mac.
- Hover your mouse cursor over the email you want to pin to reveal a set of icons.
- Click the Pin icon located in the top-right corner of the email preview to pin it to the top of your inbox. Alternatively, you can open the message and click the Pin / Unpin button in the ribbon.
Windows
Unfortunately, the Outlook app for Windows doesn't currently offer the option to stick emails to the top of the inbox. According to one volunteer moderator on Microsoft's Answers forum, the feature was available at some point but got pulled due to undisclosed issues. Hopefully, it will return in a future update.
On Mobile
More and more Outlook users access their inboxes while on the go, and they can greatly benefit from learning how to manually pin emails in the Outlook mobile app:
- Launch the Outlook app on your mobile device.
- Find and open the message you want to be pinned.
- Tap the three horizontal dots in the top toolbar.
- Select the Pin option.
Now that you know how to stick emails manually across different platforms, you should also take the time to learn how to do this automatically. That way, you'll be able to ensure that all new messages from important senders will be pinned to the top of your inbox every time without you having to manually do it every time.
Automatically Pin Emails in Outlook
To automatically pin emails in Outlook, you need to create Outlook rules that tell the email provider how to handle incoming messages. Here's how to do just then in the Outlook web app:
- Log in to your inbox on the web.
- Click the Settings gear icon and select the View all Outlook settings option.
- Navigate to Mail → Rules.
- Click Add new rule.
- Name the new rule and specify the trigger condition.
- Add the Pin to top action.
- Click Save.
At the time of writing this guide, only the web version of Outlook makes it possible to pin emails automatically in Outlook with rules and filters.
If you're using the desktop or mobile version, then we recommend you learn how to pin flagged emails in Outlook and then effortlessly create the necessary filter rules using Clean Email, a third-party inbox organizer that makes it possible to flag (star) all new messages from specific senders automatically with a simple click.
Here's how it works:
- Go to: https://app.clean.email/
- Log in with your Outlook account (the app works with all IMAP-based accounts).
- Select the Senders tool in the left pane.
- Pick the sender whose messages you want to pin automatically.
- Activate the Add Star to New Messages toggle.
From now on, Clean Email will automatically star all future messages from the selected sender.
In addition to preventing important messages from sinking into the depths of your crowded inbox, Clean Email can help you stay organized in a number of different ways. For example, you can use it to unsubscribe from unwanted subscriptions with the Unsubscriber feature, check your email address against known data breaches and security incidents, hold messages from new senders outside of your inbox with Screener, and more.
FAQs
Is it free to automatically mark future emails with a star using Clean Email?
Yes, the free version of Clean Email can be used to automatically mark future emails with a star for up to 14 days.
Can I pin messages marked as important to the top?
Yes, you can configure your Outlook client to display important messages at the top of your inbox.
Can I automatically pin emails in Outlook using mobile?
You can do that on mobile by combining the ability to flag emails with the ability to display flagged emails first.
