Living with focused inbox...

[Joshua Widup]

So, I've had a little bit of time (over the past week) to experience the Outlook 2016 edition of Focused Inbox.  I've been using it on mobile for a long time and thought that it would feel the same on Outlook but it just doesn't feel right. 

For example, I now get a master unread count but two different views.  I don't have the ability to mark all of the "other" as read without selecting them.  I also now have right click context (which I guess is OK) to move them from Focused to Other but at the same time it seems more natural to "drop" them into a view/folder. 

I'd love a rule or option to say: "If moved from Focused to Other then mark as read".  Some controls to automatically move certain senders to "other" at the client level proactively would be great as well.

Allowing me to select that my inbox unread count only shows the "Focused" count would be a very nice feature as well. 

Anybody else have thoughts or feedback on this new interface?  I just feel like it currently makes more sense on mobile than it does in heavy Outlook.

[#2]

Your last sentence sums it up. Although I myself am a "rule" user, and have most of my messages pre-processed, so maybe I'm not a good example. Still, some valid feedback here IMO, you should definitely put some of it on UserVoice.

[#3]

The first few days I kept "losing" mail because i was on the wrong tab - was kind of surprised because I love it on my phone & web- but after using it for a day or so, I got used to checking both tabs on my desktop.  After weeks of use (I'm using insider builds), I like it. It does a good job of seperating mail that needs my attention immediately from not urgent mail. 

Unread count doesn't bother me - i pretty much ignore it anyway as I don't mark messages read automatcally and use Unread to mean 'needs worked or deleted'. (Which i clearly don't do often enough as i have 1000+ unread. :( ) 

I see many, many complaints from users in the comments on my website - at this point, I'd say most people don't like it - at least, not when its turned on by default. (but if it wasn't on by default, they also wouldn't know it existed).  Most of the complainers are using Outlook.com, if that matters (where it currently only works in outlook on the web, not desktop). 

[#4]

Totally agree. I finally got Focused Inbox enabled in Outlook desktop, and immediately find the single Inbox unread count disconcerting.

Searching for "outlook focused inbox mark as read" brought me here!

Were we able to do this with the Clutter folder?

I think the best solution would be for the Unread count to only show the count for the 'folder' you are viewing.

[#5]

I have the same request.  I used my inbox as a to-do box.  If a message is unread it is because I have not yet worked the issue.  I need to get the "other" item count out of my "focused" count.

[#6]

I like the focused inbox but also hate the unread "other" counts. As with others above i also use "unread" to ID work or replies that I need to get back to. Maybe I'm a little OCD but uncleared notifications bother me so I've gotten into a habit of marking all as read if the Focused inbox is clear just to get rid of them. But it's still annoying considering how well Outlook does in sorting emails. Hopefully this is something they think to add next time around.

[#7]

Has anyone found a solution to this issue?  The post is old, but I would still like to mark my Other emails as read.  @Joshua Widup 

[#8]

I know this is old, but I too agree that this should exist. 

@Joshua Widup