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Conditional Formatting in Outlook for the Web

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I showed you a tip related to conditional formatting in Outlook. And what I mean by that is that when you receive a message from a certain person, or a certain group of people, or a message that has certain conditions, maybe it's marked as important, that it changes colour in your email list, so that it really stands out.


And I showed you how to do that on Outlook desktop. But as Microsoft are very much pushing Outlook for the web at the moment, I thought I would show you how you can do the same thing, that is set up a conditional formatting rule when you're using the web version. Because it is very slightly different.


So let's dive in and take a look. Now, this is my inbox just here. Let's say that I want to set up a rule so that whenever I receive an email from a certain person, that email shows in pink. So it stands out in my email list. This is where we can utilise conditional formatting. Now in Outlook for the web, you'll find conditional formatting on the view ribbon, and you need to click on view settings.


Now, underneath settings, make sure that you are clicked on email and then you should see conditional formatting. We are gonna add a new rule and we're gonna give our rule a name. Now the inbox that we're looking at is a test account that I have for a guy called Ben. So let's say that Ben wants any email that I sent him to show in pink.


So let's just call this Deb Mails. We can then set our condition. So we have different conditions that we can use down here. So I'm just going to say when the email comes from, and then we can add in the email address. We then get to choose the font colour. So let's click on choose colour. I'm going to go for a pink.


We can see a preview down here and click on OK. Now I will say that this is more limited than Outlook Desktop. When you're setting up conditional formatting rules in the desktop version, you can do things like change the actual font style, not just the colour. Here we're limited to just the colour, which is fine.


Let's click on Save. So now there is our rule. We can set up as many rules as we like, and you need to make sure that you have your rule toggled on in order to enable it. If you want to edit your rule, just click on the pencil icon. It will take you back in and you can make your changes. So let's close this down.


And if I go across to my focused inbox, you can see there are a few messages in here which have turned to pink because they're from me. And you can also see, there we go, a new message has come in and it shows in pink. So we can set up conditional formatting rules to change the colour of emails as they come in, they're just slightly more limited in the web version as opposed to the desktop version.

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Steps to set up conditional formatting in Outlook for the Web


Open View Settings

Go to your inbox and click on the View tab. Select View Settings.


Select Conditional Formatting

Under Settings, ensure you're in the Email section and click on Conditional Formatting.


Create a New Rule

Click Add a new rule and give it a name (e.g., "Deb Mails"). Set the condition (e.g., “From” a specific person or email address).


Choose Formatting Options

Select the colour you want to apply (e.g., pink). Preview the colour and click OK.

*Customisation Limits: In Outlook for the Web, you can only change the colour of the font, whereas in the Desktop version, you can also change the font style and size.


Save and Enable the Rule

Click Save to confirm the rule. Make sure the rule is toggled on to activate it. You can always edit or delete the rule later using the pencil icon.


Now, emails from the specified sender will appear in your chosen colour in the inbox!

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What is a customisation limitation when using conditional formatting in Outlook for the Web?

What is the purpose of conditional formatting in Outlook for the Web?

Up next - Change your Outlook for the Web Theme and Colours