Is there a way to do Drag and Drap sorting of emails in Outlook?

Question

I'd like to be able to manually sort emails in a particular Outlook folder instead of having it auto-sort by some particular column.

Basically, for emails that I need to do some sort of follow up, I move them to a "To Do" folder. If I have 5 or 10 in there, it would be nice to be able to self-prioritize them with simple drag and drop sorting. Any new emails just fall to the bottom of the list until I drag them where I want them.

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand. What I do is just "drag and drop" to the folder I want. To select a number of them I use Ctrl-click or shift-click. To have the newest arrivals at the bottom, I just sort "oldest to newest".

Answer 2

Rather than putting the emails in a separate folder why not use the built-in methods to properly manage follow-ups? Using a follow-up flag lets you say when it needs to be done by, and the emails appear just like to-do items in your to-do list (as well as appearing as normal emails). You can easily sort to-do list by the due date (which is the default anyway), so by changing the due date for a given follow-up you change the order they appear. Flags show in the email view too, and stick to the email even if you move it to another folder.

Overall, I would suggest that ten minutes poking around and learning how to get the most out of using this feature will give you far better returns than moving things around in folders.

Oh, and for the record, no, you can't manually sort, although if you really wanted to you could probably add a custom field "priority" and use that, but that would be lots of work.

Answer 3

Maybe you won't like this because it does not allow you to sort by drag and drop (which you can't do). Before or after you put the emails in the ToDo folder you could categorise them, perhaps into mental "priorities" and have the folder sorted by category. Uncategorised ones will fall to one end (depending which way up you sort). If you are using Outlook 2010 (you did not say which version you have) you cold do this by setting up a bunch of quick steps to apply the category and the move in a single click.

Answer 4

In Outlook 2007 you can place emails into custom Categories and if I recall correctly there are multiple colored flags in Outlook 2003, both of which are sortable. It sounds like either of these should fit your need.