What Do The Colored Dots Mean In Outlook

Posted By admin On 29.04.21

What do the colored dots mean in outlook email The colored dot next to people indicates their Stage. Swally2 the text in the middle is 'VoLTE' and stands for Voice Over LTE. Users who are offline also won’t have any indicator from the friend list.
What do the colored dots mean in outlook email The colored dot next to people indicates their Stage. Swally2 the text in the middle is 'VoLTE' and stands for Voice Over LTE. Users who are offline also won’t have any indicator from the friend list.

Blogroll

1 Comment · Posted by Bogdan in Email & Outlook

Tags: Email & Outlook · how to email · Outlook tips · Outlook tutorial · red email

*Since we received many emails from our users asking about incoming Outlook emails displayed in red, we decided to post this step-by-step tutorial for generating red emails.*

What are red emails?

If you use Microsoft Outlook to read your emails, every once in a while you may receive a red email message. Well, its subject is colored red, the actual body of the message is formatted normally, exactly like how it was sent.

How can this be, since when you compose a new email you can’t set any text properties (like Bold, Italic, color and so on) for the subject line? This also applies for messages written in the “Plain text” format, so the red emails aren’t related to the content properties for sure.

What gives a red email its color?

Receiving red emails is purely related to the way Outlook handles user-defined email properties. Practically, if someone sends you an Outlook email and the message is flagged for follow-up (or any category for that matter) with a reminder date set in the past, you will receive and see the email colored in red. It’s that simple. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial though, so you don’t have to search Outlook for the particular features this makes use of.

*Note that the steps one has to take in order to send a red email are provided below under the Outlook 2010 interface.*

Sending a red email – 1^st step

First, in the normal Outlook window, click on the “New Email” button (usually located in the top left corner of the screen). You will be presented with the Message ribbon in the upper part of the window, which contains the regular fields (clipboard, basic text properties etc. – additionally, my ribbon also contains an entry for one of our add-ins for Outlook named Auto Follow-Up). To the right you will see the “Tags” section, and the Follow-up button inside it is what interests us now (if you have an older version of Outlook, then the option will be present but in a different place – you will still be able to send red emails though). Click on it, then on the “Add Reminder” button from the drop-down menu.

You can also click on the “Custom…” entry, since it will bring up the same window.

Sending a red email – 2^nd step

You will be presented with the Custom Follow-Up Flag window, which should look something like this:

Since you want your red email to be seen on the recipient’s computer, uncheck the box next to “Flag for me” and check the one below, labeled “Flag for Recipients”.

Sending a red email –3^rd step

You can leave the first field as-is, or change it to your liking, but must check the box next to “Reminder”. You will be presented with a calendar in which you have to pick a passed date (this, as I stated earlier, is the reason for the color of the red email). For example, since the day I am writing this is the 23rd of February, I will pick the reminder to expire on the 22nd of the same month.

Afterwards, compose your message and just click “Send” and that’s all there is to it!

The red email on the receiving side

On your recipients computer your message will look like this:

It’s a sure-fire way to catch the attention of any user! Since many are not aware of this little trick, the new red email that popped into their Inbox will surely become of top priority, and therefore opened and read carefully. Because of its relative novelty I suggest that you don’t over-abuse it or your customers (and even friends) will start getting annoyed, or at the least, grow accustomed to this type of message. Remember that a red email is very easy to spot and if its content isn’t particularly interesting then it will be deleted with much more ease.

*For example, let’s say that you receive a rather boring and uninspired newsletter daily. If the persons sending it will transform it into a red email every time, you will soon be able to select and delete it in a matter of seconds.*

So, if you choose to send out red email-based marketing campaigns, make sure that the person receiving it will find something of interest inside. Don’t overdo it or your customers may even develop a negative association with this type of message. Additionally, since it only works for Outlook and you can’t know the email software used by your email recipient(s), you shouldn’t focus your email success efforts only on this ‘red email’ trick. The message’s subject and content are far more important.

FAQ

What happens when forwarding/replying to a red email?

The reminders aren’t carried along and so the recipient sees a normal, black-colored subject line.

Does this work on Thunderbird?

This red email trick only works for users of Outlook (2003 or higher). All other email client programs simply ignore this follow-up email property.

Is the body of a red email the same color as the subject?

No, as I stated in the beginning, no formatting is lost. Here is an example:

Does this technique increase the spam rating of my message?

Even if this red email technique is sometimes used by spammers, it will not increase your messages’ spam rating from SpamAssassin or the particular program assigned to deal with the unwanted messages. This is because a red email uses an internal function of Outlook, the one that deals with follow-ups and their reminders.

If you have ever sent out an email newsletter, I’m sure that with each passing campaign you encountered people who opted out of your email list. Have you ever asked yourself why? Read more: Why do people unsubscribe to emails? | 1 Comment

The subject line in an email, almost as much as the from line, is one of the most important deal-breakers for your readers. That’s why this week we looked at how different email clients (on all platforms we could get our hands on) dealt with them… So, continue reading and see for yourself how many characters your subject line should have! Read more: The maximum displayed length of the email subject line | 1 Comment

In last week’s article, we hoped to convince you that the from line is at least as important as the subject line in all your email communications. Now, to help you out, we tested different platforms and came up with the following “cheat-sheet”, detailing the maximum displayed length of the from line on different browsers, phones and desktop applications! Read more: The maximum displayed length of the email from line | 2 Comments

Comments:

1 comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

What Do The Colored Dots Mean In Outlook Signature

<< How to manage bounced email addresses lists from Outlook

The DOs & DON’Ts of Email signatures >>

The Conditional Formatting feature in Outlook allows you to get organized by automatically color coding your Emails, Calendar items, Contacts and Tasks without the need to apply a Color Category to it or move them to different folders.

The color coding isn’t just intended to emphasize certain emails but it can also be used to deemphasize certain emails such as newsletters or emails you are only a CC or BCC recipient of.

You may actually already know Conditional Formatting without realizing it as it is for instance also being used to:

Show unread emails in a blue and bold font.
Show expired emails and completed tasks in a grey and strikethrough font.
Show overdue emails and tasks in a red font.

The “Conditional Formatting” feature may look complex at first but creating color coding rules is actually fairly easy and quite powerful when used the right way.

This guide will help you on your way to get yourself familiar with the Conditional Formatting options with 8 color coding examples which might be useful to you as well.

Conditional Formatting usage in the Message List.

Conditional Formatting Basics

Creating a Conditional Formatting rule can be done in the following way;

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog:
- Outlook 2007
  View-> Arrange By-> Custom…-> Automatic Formatting…
- Outlook 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / Microsoft 365
  tab View-> View Settings-> Conditional Formatting…
To define a Conditional Formatting rule of your own, press the Add button.

Adding a new Conditional Formatting rule.
Supply a name for the rule.
Press the Font… button to define your Font settings.
Press the Condition… button to specify when this font should apply.

You may recognize the Condition… dialog and its usage as the same dialog is used to create a Search Folder, a View Filter or to perform an Advanced Search.

Conditional Formatting Tips & Tricks

Just like many other “more advanced” features in Outlook, the Conditional Formatting feature may sometimes appear to have a mind of its own and produce unexpected results or no results at all.

The tips and tricks below will help you better understand how the Conditional Formatting feature works and generate its color coded view.

You can sort the rules by using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons. The higher listed rules takes precedence over the lower ones. A lower listed rule can append the formatting of a higher listed rule if the formatting is not defined.
- For instance, when in a higher listed rule the font color is set to “Auto” the color of a lower rule will apply. However, if the higher listed rule has a color defined, the lower rule will not “overwrite” this color.
Specifying names of senders or recipients in a Conditional Formatting rules can be a bit tricky; The name must exactly match the name as displayed in the From field of the message. Better is to create the rule based on the e-mail address. If you are in an Exchange environment, you can simply add the names as listed in the Global Address Book of your company.
The Conditional Formatting rule only applies to the folders which use the same view. To apply your custom view to other folders see: Applying custom views to all folders at once.
If the rule doesn’t do what you expect it to do once created, you might want to try to remove or even isolate statements (by creating a separate rule for that statement) to find out where things go wrong.
Do not add too much color to your mailbox or the organizing effect gets lost (but you’ll be left with a nice rainbow though ).

Conditional Formatting Examples

I’ll explain the advanced color editing by the following examples/ideas. The examples are getting more advanced each time so when you’ve practiced them all you should be able to handle it as a pro as you are not limited to these examples;

Example 1: Color code messages coming from someone specific (like your partner)

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
In the “From” field, type the email address of the sender or (when you are in an Exchange environment), press the From… button and select the sender from the Global Address List (so not your Contacts folder as explained here).
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages coming from a specific address.

Example 2: Color code messages that are sent to a specific email address

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
In the “Sent To” field, type the email address of the recipient or (when you are in an Exchange environment), press the Sent To… button and select the recipient from the Global Address List (so not your Contacts folder as explained here).
- This rule can be useful to highlight that the email was also sent to for instance your manager or a colleague, a distribution group or to a newsletter alias.
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code emails that were sent to a newsletter alias.

Example 3: Color code messages by words in the message

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
In the “Search for the word(s)” field add the words Conditional Formatting should respond on.
By the “In” dropdown list you can specify whether to look in Subject, Subject and Body or common mail fields (like From or Category).
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages based on the word “dispatched”.

Avery Colored Dots

Example 4: Color code messages by Category

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
Press the More Choices tab.
Press the Categories… button.
Select the categories you want Conditional Formatting to apply to. When you are done selecting categories press OK.
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages based on Categories.

Example 5: Color code messages when the message is larger than 1MB and contains specific words

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
In the “Search for the word(s)” field add the words Conditional Formatting should respond on.
By the “In” dropdown list you can specify whether to look in Subject, Subject and Body or common mail fields (like From or Category).
Press the More Choices tab.
At the bottom, in the Size section, press the down arrow where now “Doesn’t matter” is displayed and set it to “Greater than”.
One text area will become active now. In this window type 1024 (1024 kilobytes is 1MB).
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages based on their size.

Example 6: Color code messages received today, addressed directly to me coming from specific persons

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
At the bottom next to Time press the down arrow, where now “none” is displayed, and set it to “received”.
The dropdown list next to “received” will now become active and is set to “anytime” by default. Set this to “today”.
In the Sent To… field type your e-mail address. If you’ve got more than one e-mail address configured in Outlook you can enter here more than one e-mail address. When specifying more than 1 address, make sure you divide them with an ” ; “.
- Example
  address1@domain1.com; address2@domain.com; address1@domain2.com. Please mind the rules about using the Sent To… button; read them here.
In the From… field type the addresses of the people you want Conditional Formatting to respond to. Again; mind the rules about using the From… button
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages based on the From, To and Received fields.

Example 7: Color code messages that have a Receipt Request and is considered Confidential

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
Press the tab Advanced.
Press the Field button.
Navigate to and select All Mail Fields-> Receipt Requested.
You’ll now see “Receipt Request” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “no”. Set this value to “yes”.
Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” list.
Again press the Field button.
Navigate to and select Frequently-used fields-> Sensitivity.
You’ll now see “Sensitivity” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “normal”. Set this value to “confidential”
Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” list so you’ll now see both statements just created.
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code messages based on multiple Advanced filter fields.

Example 8: Color code a Meeting Request you have not yet responded to

What Do The Color Dots Mean In Outlook Email

Open the Conditional Formatting dialog, add a new rule, name it, specify a font and press the Condition… button.
Press the tab Advanced.
Press the Field button.
Navigate to and select All Appointment fields-> Meeting Status.
You’ll now see “Meeting Status” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “Meeting organizer”. Set this value to “not yet responded”.
Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” list.
Press OK to close the Filter dialog.
Press OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created.

Color code Meeting Requests you haven’t yet responded to.

Well that should be it! You are now able to create rules with combined types of conditions. Again; If the rule doesn’t do what you expect it to do once created you might want to try to remove or even isolate statements (by creating a separate rule for that statement) to find out where things go wrong.

Links to more Conditional Formatting examples

Do you want more examples of how Conditional Formatting can be useful to you?

What Does The Yellow Dot Mean On Outlook Email

The links below contain many more scenarios for which you can use Conditional Formatting like for instance to Color Code your Calendar without the need to use Color Categories (which people you share your Calendar with may not see).

What Does The Yellow Dot Mean In Outlook

Conditional Formatting in the Calendar.

Fitfox873