Focused Inbox in Outlook on the Web

[Jason Rhodes]

I noticed in my Outlook on the Web today that I have Focused Inbox enabled. I never actually got a pop up to opt into it like I've seen others getting, does this mean it's GA now? Also, when I go to cog > Display settings > Focused Inbox it's turned on. However the Clutter folder still appears in my folder tree, despite there now being no setting to turn this on or off, and throughout today I've still been getting some emails trickling into the Clutter folder, despite most going to the 'Other' folder. So this begs 2 questions: 1. When will the Clutter folder disappear given I can't remove it myself 2. Why are some emails still going to the Clutter folder, as well as most going into 'Other' i.e. is this just a transition issue? Thanks.

[#2]

i guess it is finally starting to roll out you can always disable it. On your phone it should already be possible to see the focused inbox and the toggle to switch it of.

[#3]

If you are using an Office 365 account and wish to disable the Clutter folder, there is a setting to shut it off but you would need to access the Settings for in your mailbox via the Web (not the actual Outlook desktop client). I usually have my users login via http://portal.office.com and access their mailboxes there and then access the Settings on the top-right. I hope that is helpful.

[#4]

I don't think focused Inbox is GA.  There has been a discussion going on here waiting for its arrival.  Originally the rollout to FR users should have been completed by around next week.  With the rollout to standard users completed by early to mid-Jan 2017. 

You may have seen this already but for Q1:

"After switching, you'll no longer receive less important email in the Clutter folder. Instead, email will be split between the Focused and Other tabs in your inbox. The same algorithm that moved items to the Clutter folder now powers Focused Inbox, meaning that any emails that were set to move to Clutter will now be moved to Other. Any messages already in your Clutter folder will remain there until you decide to delete or move them."

Also from @Tony Redmond article: 

"Items that are in the Clutter folder remain there until you remove them. After you begin using the Focused Inbox, the Clutter folder loses its status as a system folder, which means that you can delete all items from the folder and then remove it. In fact, if the Clutter folder is empty when a mailbox switches to the Focused Inbox, the folder is removed automatically."

For Q2, that does sound like transition or partial rollout issue.

[#5]

So I can see now even though I was not asked to opt-in to Focused Inbox with any popup, the Focused/Other boxes are working fine and nothing is going to Clutter at all. So even though there is no way to turn off clutter now in my settings, the actual Clutter folder still stays in the folder tree across all my applications.

[#6]

If Focused Inbox is enabled for your mailbox, you should be able to delete the Clutter folder and anything that it contains. Certainly I was able to do this.

[#7]

Hi Tony, Thanks for your response... I was going to try that but was a tad worried it might break something! Jason. ps... Love listening to your voice on the podcasts you do.

[#8]

... re podcasts... You show a worrying lack of taste!

[#9]

Here's what I see when I right click on my 'Clutter' folder. Delete is greyed out. When I click on 'Clutter Settings' it takes me the the Focused Inbox settings.

[#10]

I wonder if Clutter is truly disabled, what does get-clutter say?

[#11]

Reverting to PowerShell (the answer in many circumstances).

What is shown when you run Get-Clutter against your mailbox? Here's what I see, which shows that Clutter is disabled for the mailbox:

[PS] C:\> Get-Clutter -Identity TRedmond

RunspaceId : d6c3e6f1-88d9-4e81-9e91-779a0f075e1d
IsEnabled : False
MailboxIdentity : CN=TRedmond,OU=xxxx.onmicrosoft.com,OU=Microsoft Exchange Hosted
Organizations,DC=EURPR04A002,DC=prod,DC=outlook,DC=com
Identity :
IsValid : True
ObjectState : New

[#12]

Tony,

When I run it on a few of my other accounts, it returns fine, here's an example:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-Clutter -Identity support

RunspaceId : 58ab677b-1164-41a2-b250-5b6da17179b6
IsEnabled : False
MailboxIdentity : CN=support,OU=CubeWebSolutions.onmicrosoft.com,OU=Microsoft Exchange Hosted Organizations,DC=APCPR02A001,DC=prod,DC=outlook,DC=com
ClutterCleanUpState :
Identity :
IsValid : True
ObjectState : New

When I run the command on my own account however, I get a world of pain. some of which you can see in the attached image.

[#13]

OK, let me get this right. You can run Get-Clutter against other mailboxes in the same tenant but the cmdlet barfs when it runs against your mailbox?

If so, time to file a support ticket because there's something not quite right here (to state the blindingly obvious).

[#14]

That correct Tony, so I'll lodge a support ticket now.

[#15]

We are having the exactly same issue on our tenant. Only some mailboxes are affected.

Also PowerShell Get-Clutter and Get-FocusedInbox return same "Error on proxy command"

and "System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Newtonsoft.Json.." for

those mailboxes.

Did support manage to fix the problem on your tenant ?

[#16]

So this is a very interesting thing to read, now that i can see someone else is having the same PowerShell issue. I've lodged a support ticket but have not heard back. I figured they are still trying to figure out what the heck is wrong.

[#17]

Also noticed that problem is "moving" from mailbox to mailbox. Some that had the error are now fine but there are new ones with this problem. Some are 24+ hours in "problematic" state.

[#18]

Well the issue that was occuring must have been fixed, as mine is now reporting correctly in Powershell:

RunspaceId : 6038f608-8ef6-4f37-ad80-7b05a9bbde62
IsEnabled : False
MailboxIdentity : CN=jason_7875587b48,OU=XXX.onmicrosoft.com,O
U=Microsoft Exchange Hosted
Organizations,DC=APCPR02A001,DC=prod,DC=outlook,DC=com
ClutterCleanUpState :
Identity :
IsValid : True
ObjectState : New

However, as per a new thread I added to here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Exchange/Why-is-quot-Focused-Inbox-quot-suddenly-disappeared/...

My focused inbox feature has totally disappeared in OWA and any emails that are appaering in the 'Other' folder are hidden from view in the OWA inbox, and I can only see them if I use Outlook 2016.