Do things faster in Outlook.com

Email should be fun—not a time sink. Designed to reduce clicks and clutter, Outlook.com can help you zip through your task-oriented email, and spend more time on keeping in touch with friends and family.

Outlook.com is set up to keep you moving as fast as possible, with its clutter-free design and crystal-clear navigation bar at the top, which shows you only the options that make sense. For example, when you tap or click New to create an email, the navigation bar shifts to offer only the options you can use for that email. You can also move swiftly to your other web apps by clicking Outlook at the top, left of your inbox.

Can't find what you're looking for? Find more under the Options icon at the top right of your inbox.

Fewer distractions, as well as the intuitive design, will keep you moving quickly. Ads are tucked neatly away on the right side of the inbox, and they remain a uniform, neutral color unless you decide to interact with them. Once you open or create an email, the ads disappear entirely.

It’s amazing how much faster you can get things done just by reducing the number of times you have to click. Outlook keeps the clicks to a minimum, especially if you turn on the Active view settings.

When you turn on Active views, you can see more without opening messages. For example, when your friend sends you a link to a video, you can watch it right there in Outlook without opening the email. Or, if you get a mail with a friend’s status update, you can post comments about it right from the message. Fewer clicks equals less time. If you try it and don't like it, you can always turn it off again.

To turn Active view settings on or off:

You don’t have to open or select an email to delete or flag it in Outlook. Instead of opening or selecting a message, just point to the email in your inbox to see what you can do with it—like delete or flag. And with one tap or click, complete the action. No intricate clicking required. You can also create your own instant actions.

Quickly ditch junk and potential phishing emails. Tap or click the email, and the Junk menu gives you the option to designate it as plain junk, or as a potential phishing scam. There's also an option to note that your friend has been hacked.

Because most of us are more efficient in a clean, orderly environment, Outlook.com has excellent tools to help you declutter your inbox and keep it that way.

Filters, archiving, and categories will help you organize the email you want to keep, while Sweep and automated cleanups will help you quickly delete or prune the email you don't want. Unsubscribe will help you keep email you don't want out of your inbox altogether. All you have to do is open the email newsletter you don't want anymore, scroll to the bottom of the message, then click Unsubscribe, and Outlook will do the rest.