Outlook – How to make the Outlook 2007 inbox look like this again

Hmm, I did it but won't get the bonus points I guess...

I'm running outlook 2010 so I could use a new feature called the "Quick Access" menu where you can define chains of actions as a single button with a shortcut key (unfortunally, it has to be Ctrl+Shift+NUM, so since I wanted this action to run when I press Delete, I had to do an extra step. See below.)

In Outlook 2007 you can still define macros. I stole this from another entry on the same subject:

http://www.formortals.com/outlook-macro-mark-as-read-delete/

Sub DeleteAndMarkAsRead()
    Dim oItem As Object
    Dim oMailItem As MailItem
    Dim oRSSItem As PostItem

    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then
        Exit Sub
    End If

    For Each oItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
        If oItem.Class = olMail Then
            Set oMailItem = oItem
            oMailItem.UnRead = False
            oMailItem.Delete
        End If
    Next

    Set oItem = Nothing
End Sub

You can then add the macro as a button and assign a shortcut to it:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/macrobutton.htm

Then to be able to run it when I press Delete, I used AutoHotKey and add the following to my script file:

#IfWinActive Inkorgen - 
    ;
    Del::       
        Send ^+1
    return
#IfWinActive

The part after #IfWinActive is the Caption (Title) of my Outlook window ("Inkorgen" is Swedish for "Inbox" FYI...) so you'll have to change it to reflect the Caption of your Outlook window.

The Send ^+1 tells AutoHotKey to simulate a Ctrl+Shift+1 keypress (that's the shortcut key for my macro (Quick Access Button)).

(There is a way of matching against the class name of the window (ahk_class), but this worked for me so I couldn't be bothered to find that out.)

• It is a very bad practive to track something by read/unread status. Consider using flags, categories or even folders for that.
• You can maintain per-user read/unread message state by using Public Folders. But this is a deprecated method.