Tips for Managing Multiple Email Accounts in Outlook

Over the past few weeks I have added accounts for some users that already had at least one other email address. It really isn’t uncommon for people to have more than one account and Outlook has some great features to help you with your multiple accounts. Unfortunately, many users will find these out by trial and error or not at all. If you find yourself needing to manage multiple accounts, here are some tips to help you along the way!

When you have multiple email accounts, they will appear in the account tree view on the left in the Outlook window. The bold one is the one currently selected and if you go to send a message it will appear to come from that account. If you have a lot of folders, then you might have to scroll down to see the other account.


You can collapse (or expand) these trees by clicking on the caret (little triangle) to the left of the email address. This makes it easier to see the one on the bottom. You can also drag and drop to re-order them when the are collapsed. By default they are ordered alphabetically.


When you start to compose a new message, the From address will be set to whichever account is currently selected. You can change that choice by clicking on the From button and selecting from the dropdown.


It can be hard to keep up with how many new emails are coming into that account at the bottom. One way to make this more visible is to make use of the favorites box at the top. That puts both inboxes at the top where I can see them and the number shows me the number of unread messages. Notice that when you add a 2nd inbox, Outlook appends the account info so you can tell them apart.


Your favorites may already have some folders in it but you can add and remove those as needed. Just right click on any folder and select show (or remove) to add or remove it from your Favorites.

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