Use Clean Email to Quickly Find Unread Emails
With the multitude of Outlook versions available, each with its own unique interface and feature set, finding and managing unseen emails can become a confusing and time-consuming task. Clean Email is a third-party inbox organizer that offers a consistent and powerful solution across all platforms.
To quickly find unread emails with it, you need to:
- Log in to Clean Email with your Outlook account.
- Navigate to the Unread Mail section in the left pane.
- That's it!
You can then group unopened messages by several different criteria (sender domain, subject, or recipient, for example) and sort them from the newest, oldest, largest, and so on.
Besides finding unseen emails, Clean Email offers a range of features to optimize your inbox management, both on desktop and on mobile:
- Bulk actions: Easily select and process multiple unread messages at once.
- Smart Folders: Automatically categorize emails for quick access to important messages.
- Auto Clean rules: Set up automated actions for handling future new and unread emails.
- Read Later: Quickly move non-urgent unopened mail to a dedicated folder.
- Unsubscribe: Instantly remove yourself from unwanted mailing lists.
💡 Note: Clean Email is compatible with the Outlook web service (and any other email provider that supports IMAP). The app doesn’t sync with the Outlook desktop client, but you can use Clean Email independently to access inbox management features that aren’t available in your desktop client.
How to Find All Unread Emails in Outlook
Unfortunately, in true Microsoft fashion, multiple versions of Outlook exist and do things slightly differently. This is why I need to provide multiple sets of instructions.
📌 The instructions below apply to Outlook 2016, 2019, 2021, Outlook.com, New Outlook for Windows and Mac, and Outlook on iPhone.
The following instructions assume you're in your Inbox folder and want to see new unread messages. If you need to find unseen messages in other folders, such as deleted or archived messages, you'll need to navigate to those specific folders first and then filter emails in Outlook.
Here's how to find all unread emails across the most common Outlook versions:
Outlook.com, New Outlook for Windows and Mac
- Click Filter at the top of your inbox.
- Select Unread from the drop-down menu.
📌 Tip: Alternatively, you can press the Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + O key combination on Mac. Unfortunately, the Windows version of Outlook doesn't support a similar shortcut.
Outlook 2019 and 2021
- Look at the top of your message list, above the column headings.
- Click Unread to show only unopened messages in the current folder.
Outlook 2016
- Find the All drop-down at the top of the message list.
- Click it and select Unread Mail.
Outlook 2013
- On the ribbon, locate the Find group.
- Click the Filter Email drop-down.
- Select Unread.
Outlook on iPhone
- Tap the filter icon(funnel shape) at the top of your inbox.
- Select Unread from the options.
How to Select All Unread Emails in Outlook
After filtering to show only unread emails, you might want to select them all for bulk actions, such as marking them as read, flagging them as important, or pinning them to the top of your inbox. This is what you need to do:
Outlook.com, New Outlook for Windows and Mac
- Apply the unread filter as described earlier.
- Press Ctrl + A (Windows) or Command + A (Mac) to select all visible unopened messages.
Outlook 2016, 2019, and 2021
- Filter for unread emails.
- Press Ctrl + A (Windows) or Command + A (Mac) to select all visible unseen messages.
Outlook on iPhone
- Apply the unread filter.
- Long-tap on an unopened message.
- Tap Select All at the top-left corner.
📌 Tip: To exclude one or more messages from your bulk selection when sorting emails in Outlook, you can hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Mac) and click on the messages you want to deselect. On mobile, simply tap the individual messages you want to remove from your selection.
How to Add an Unread Folder in Outlook
One trick to make unopened messages more visible in Outlook is to create an Unread folder. This way, hidden unread emails will always be just one click away.
Unfortunately, the ability to create an Unread folder is only available in the classic desktop version of Outlook, not in the new web-based or mobile versions.
Here's how to add an Unread folder in the classic version of the Outlook desktop client:
- Click the Folder tab and select New Search Folder.
- Scroll to Custom and choose Create a Custom Search Folder.
- Click Choose to customize.
- Name your folder (e.g., "Unread Messages ") and click Criteria.
- In More Choices, check Only items that are and select Unread.
- Click Browse to select specific folders to include.
- Click OK to create your new Unread folder.
This custom folder will show only unopened emails, making it easier to search emails in Outlook and quickly find unread messages.
Final Thoughts
Whether you're using the latest web version, one of the desktop clients, or the mobile app, Outlook makes it possible to quickly find unread emails. Take advantage of this feature so that you never miss any important message and combine it with the inbox organization capabilities of Clean Email to effortlessly achieve inbox zero.
FAQs
How to quickly find unread emails in Outlook?
You need to use the filter at the top of your inbox. In most versions, click the Filter icon or option and select Unread.
Why is Outlook not showing me unread emails?
Outlook might not show unread emails if filters are applied, the Focused Inbox feature is enabled, or if the messages are automatically moved to another folder. Check your filters, Focused Inbox, and other folders like "Junk Email" or "Deleted Items."
Why does Outlook show unread emails when there are none?
This problem often happens due to sync issues. The simplest solution is to restart Outlook so that it synchronizes messages again. If that doesn't work, I recommend you search emails using "isread:no" (without quotation marks) to find any hidden unread messages.
How are read and unread emails typically shown in the inbox?
Unread emails are usually displayed in bold text with a blue dot (on Mac and mobile versions) or a bold line on the left (on the web version). Read messages appear in regular text without the blue dot or bold line.
