Yay, Clutter is here…

Ok, never thought I’d say that.  Clutter (perhaps there was a better word for it, I personally always had a “Noise” folder with rules assigned in my Outlook for stuff that didn’t matter and occassionally got housecleaned –  but not to say “Noise” was any better) is here, for Office 365/Exchange Online, Outlook Web Access (OWA) and the Outlook Web Apps (always OWA, groan…).

Our Office 365 Tenancy is enabled for “First Release”.  That means we get the goodies PDQ and get to try them before your business does.

Today, Microsoft made the official announcement about Clutter (or to “De-Clutter”) on their Office Blog, and sure enough, it appeared in our tenancy right away as a First Guinea Pig, er, Release.  While I keep a very clean inbox and have done for a very long time, I’m curious to see how this works so I’m going for it Day One.

A few key points…

  1. It is disabled by default
  2. It is configurable in Outlook Web Access, not in Outlook
  3. It uses machine learning to determine what is clutter and moves items that don’t matter to that folder
  4. Those of you keeping a tidy inbox, this won’t likely have much of an impact. But those of you that prefer to use other methods to file all messages directly in the Inbox, this may prove useful

Here’s how it goes…

Enable it in your Outlook Web Access

  1. Notice the Clutter folder in your mailbox (in OWA, OWA or Outlook, and not to be confused with MOWA –  sigh, again…)
  2. Let Clutter do its thing (Machine Learning) and help it along the way, by moving items to Clutter that you find are, well, clutter…

Enable Clutter

In Outlook Web Access, choose Options from the top right settings menu (the Cog), and then choose Clutter under “Mail” and select “Separate items identified as clutter”.

Options

EnableClutter

Then Check It Out

In Outlook Web Access

InOWA

In Outlook

Notice it is added as favourite..

Outlook

And Expect a Welcome Email

WelcomeEmail

Finally, teach it about your Clutter…

  1. Drag and drop items into Clutter
  2. Or right click on items and choose “Mark as Clutter

MarkAsClutter