Do You Speak ‘Search’?

The New Outlook’s web-based email client has powerful search functions to help you cut through the sheer volume of messages we store and don’t always sort. Taking advantage of them will require you to learn about “search” language, which has its roots in Boolean searches that offer precise options to find information. They use AND to expand a search, OR to introduce options, and NOT to exclude information.

Boolean searches are rooted in an algebraic method developed in the mid-19th century by the English mathematician George Boole. It’s fundamental to modern computing, and today’s database searches are based mainly on Boolean logic, which allows us to specify parameters in detail. If you think of your email inbox as a database, Boolean concepts apply to your searches.

Fortunately, we don’t need to remember our high school or middle school algebra to search our Outlook inboxes. Cheap data storage (it really is cheap even if you balk at paying for it) lets us keep messages for years…and years…and years. We can have hundreds of thousands of messages in one big folder or dozens of subfolders across several email accounts.

In a typical search, you likely type in a statement (the instructions for the search) that consists of the sender’s name, and often you’ll see a list of options that ties the sender to a subject line or specific content. The computing power harnessed by AI presents you with choices based on what your computer thinks you are looking for. It’s not an efficient way to search your emails for specific information. It’s more like using terms like “hot” and “cold” when looking for a hidden object.

Using Boolean terms, you can give your computer more specific instructions. For example, if you have written me emails for advice on antivirus and malware software, you can pinpoint my responses by typing Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus into the search box. You can also type it in this way: Norman Rosenthal +antivirus.

If you’re not sure whether the subject was spelled antivirus or anti-virus, you can type in: Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus OR anti-virus. If we had email exchanges about antivirus software or malware and want to restrict it to just antivirus, you could type in: Norman Rosenthal AND antivirus NOT malware or Norman Rosenthal +antivirus -malware.

That’s essentially how Boolean searches can work in your email boxes, but they’re not the only kind of search you might need. You can use a statement to find all the unread emails in your inbox. Unread emails can cover several days and pile up when you’re especially busy.

Note that the same search techniques and languages apply to searching your Sent Items.

The New Outlook has removed Unread as a category of messages you can click on. But you can still find them by typing this into the search box: isread:no. This will give you a list of unread messages. There is also a prompt for unread messages when you open the search box, but the list may differ from the list generated by the isread:no statement.

With the increase in the use of email, email manageability and security will become more tightly intertwined, especially for offices with multiple people collaborating on servicing the same accounts, clients, or patients. Good practice for subject lines on outgoing emails will help manage searches for your inbox and messages you’ve sent. The subject line may also influence how email spam and security filters handle your email (see Quarantined Messages and Email Security).

We’ve hit the highlights here. Every organization or person has specific email handling needs. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us with specific questions about email management. We all have a ton of emails; don’t let them weigh you down.

Quarantined Messages and Email Security

You may be getting emails from Microsoft about quarantined messages and wondering what’s going on. The short explanation is that Microsoft’s email filters are getting better and that the company is trying to protect you from harmful attachments and links that can compromise your tech system’s integrity.

We typically don’t know about a message we haven’t seen until the sender contacts us because we haven’t responded to them. In today’s age of more sophisticated phishing campaigns, deep fakes, and more malicious code, we rely on our email systems, such as Outlook and Gmail, to protect us from ourselves with stronger filters. Too many people are careless about opening attachments or clicking links that lead to scams. Even the most careful person can fall victim to clicking on something they shouldn’t. So, Microsoft makes you take an extra step or two in hopes you will slow down and give more thought to the action the sender wants you to take.

It used to be enough to check your spam or junk mail folder in Outlook, and it’s still important with the New Outlook. As filters get more robust, more messages get diverted there, but, as the commercials say, wait, there’s more. You are likely getting messages from Microsoft that they have quarantined messages based on their parameters for determining if a message may be part of a phishing campaign or has a malicious link or attachment.

If you have Office 365, you won’t be able to access the quarantined message in your inbox. Instead, you’ll get a message with the following information for each quarantined message:

  • Sender: The email address of the sender of the quarantined message.
  • Subject: The Subject line of the quarantined message.
  • Date: The date/time that the message was quarantined in UTC.

You’ll also get a link. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you probably feel safer just deleting the message with the link. However, because the filters are more robust – based on an array of factors – you could miss a useful or important message.

Individuals and office administrators who use Office 365 as a web app can find their quarantined messages by clicking on this link: https://security.microsoft.com/quarantine?viewid=Email. It takes you to a Microsoft Defender page where you will see who each message was from and why it was quarantined. Messages are held there for 30 days. During that time, you can release a message, which will send it to your inbox, where you can open it and decide what you want to do. You can also delete a message directly from the quarantine page. We recommend you bookmark this link.

Of course, these security measures put an onus on senders, especially those who legitimately send bulk email, to ensure their DNS records are up to date and follow accepted anti-spam policies for outgoing mail.

We can help you by reviewing your incoming and outgoing email settings to maximize your security and email handling efficiency. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to talk about it.

Better Attachment Options

Attached files are the bane of my existence, and they probably cause you a lot of problems, too. Microsoft’s New Outlook removes your option to drag an attachment to your desktop or a folder and forces you to choose a more specific action. It seems like a pain in the butt, but it could save your butt.

Hackers have long used attachments and links to bogus or dangerous websites to get into your system and compromise your data. Microsoft has added extra steps that seem really stupid at first. But they slow you down and force you to give your actions more forethought.

When you right-click on an attachment, you now see a dropdown menu of five actions you can take:

  • Preview
  • Edit in Browser
  • Edit in Word desktop app
  • Save to OneDrive
  • Download

Preview keeps the attachment in your inbox, but once you see what it is, you can choose any of the options in the dropdown menu directly from the preview.

One of those, Edit in Browser, lets you immediately work on a file as part of a collaborative team, a feature that’s becoming more common in offices because it’s much more efficient than editing a file, saving it with a version designation and resending it to everyone as another email attachment. How many times have you seen four collaborators open, edit, and resend the same version at different times? One of the team members invariably is left to sort through all the copies of the file and put all the changes into a new master document. And equally invariably, an edit is missed, misplaced, or misspelled.

Similarly, saving an attachment in OneDrive allows collaborators to edit it or view the changes without having to go through the process of resending and opening new attachments. With both OneDrive and a file edited in a browser, you only need to send a link. Anyone who opens the file by clicking the link will see the latest version. This is the same process used for Google Docs.

But if it’s better for you, the New Outlook allows you to download the file as you did before and save it to a folder – either on your computer or on your computer and OneDrive – if you have it.

New Outlook’s handling of attachments doesn’t mean it’s safe to open and edit a file no matter how you do it, especially when getting attachments or links to attachments from people you don’t know. As we’ve preached ad nauseam for years, you should closely examine a sender’s email address and other identifying factors. If something doesn’t look right, call the sender at a phone number you know is legitimate or look up a phone number by going to a new browser window and accessing a website independent of the email.

We can guide you through all the ins and outs of handling attachments through the New Outlook based on your personal or organizational needs. Call us – 973—433-6676 – or email us for an appointment.