IT Professionals

Customize Outlook Today

Posted by on Mar 11, 2009 | 2 Comments

If you’re going to use Outlook, or any other email program, you might as well customize it to meet your own needs. It only makes sense given how much time people typically spend within their email program.

Take for example the Outlook Today pane. When you open Microsoft Outlook, it opens the Outlook Today pane by default. Some of the information displayed in the Outlook Today pane includes:

  • Calendar information
  • Tasks
  • Number of unopened email

Not all of this information may be of use to you when you first open Outlook. You may only want to see the number of unread messages in your Inbox. Personally, the only information I want to see, is my appointments for the day and my task list.

When you open Outlook, notice the Customize Outlook Today option at the top of the Outlook Today pane. This allows you to configure the information that is included in the pane as well as whether or not to open to Outlook Today. When you click on the Customize Outlook Today option, you can configure the following options:

  • Startup – Determines whether or not to open to the Outlook Today pane.
  • Messages – Determines the e-mail folders that are displayed in the Outlook Today pane.
  • Calendar – Determines the number of days in the calendar to display.
  • Tasks – Determines the tasks that are displayed and how they are listed.
  • Styles – Determines the style that is used in the Outlook Today pane.

Once you have made configuration changes, click the Save Changes option in the top left corner.

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  • jeff harrington

    what are you talking about? I DON’T see any customize outlook today button?

  • Colin McAllister

    Reference the can’t “…see any customize outlook today button?” rant above…

    If a different theme is used, the button my be elsewhere – for example on the “Winter” theme, the button is bottom right.

    It also vanishes sometimes because a column is too large, so try resizing the columns – in my case, I found moving the folders column as far right as it would go made the button appear as if by magic.