Question: I have been very diligent about deleting emails in Outlook, but accidentally deleted something I shouldn’t have and went back to try to find it and had difficulty finding it. I miss how Lotus Notes used to sort by date deleted, not the date the message was received. Can I change that?
Answer: Yes, I missed that feature too. But on the Outlook client you can change your view settings in the deleted items view by adding the ”Modified” field to your deleted items view (which will be the deleted date). Below are the steps involved for Outlook 2010. This is a one-time setup unless you decide to change the view settings again.
- From the Deleted Items view, right click in the heading area at the top below the search field (arrange by) and click View Settings.
- The Advanced View Settings window appears. Click Columns and select Date/Time from “Select available fields from.”
- Select Modified from the Available fields and click Add. It adds the Modified field to the bottom, so you may want to move it up below Subject or wherever you prefer. Click OK once.
- Next you need to change the sort order. Click Sort from the Advanced View Settings window.
- Change to Date/Time fields from the Select Available Fields from (at the bottom of the Sort screen).
- Then from the Sort items by field, select Modified and Descending (to sort from most recently deleted).
- You may want to be sure grouping is on none (unless you prefer to keep it on)
- Click OK twice.
- Your deleted items should be in the date modified (deleted) order now.
- If you find you need to move the modified field elsewhere on the screen to see it, just go to the View Settings > Columns and move fields around.