7 Microsoft Outlook tips everyone should know

Become an Outlook master with these tips on perfectly organizing emails, finding information faster, optimizing settings, and more.

- THOMAS JOOS

If you have to work in Microsoft Outlook, you might as well do it smart. Here are several tips to help you work more efficiently in all available versions of Outlook. All of our tips were tested using Outlook 2021, but some tips also work in a similar form with Outlook 2019 and 2016.

1. BACKUP AND RESTORE PROFILE SETTINGS, SIGNATURES, AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS

Outlook 2016 and 2019 and Outlook 2021 save their profile settings-including email accounts, favorite folders, settings, and information about the required servers-in the Windows registry. If you export the corresponding keys, you can transfer a large part of Outlook's settings to a new computer or restore them in the case of new installations.

To restore, you only need to double-click on the exported registry file and all email settings will be integrated into Windows again. The steps are as follows:

1. Open the registry editor with regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ SoftwareMicrosoft\Office16.0\ Outlook\Profiles.

3. You will see each profile as a separate key below the Profiles key. Right-click on the profile you want to export and select Export from the context menu. There's your backup!

To restore your backup, double-click on the exported registry file and have it imported into Windows.

Want to back up your Outlook signatures too? Outlook saves signatures in the directory C:\Users\AppData\ Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures. You can also easily save these by copying them and restoring them at any time.