How to Turn Focused Inbox On or Off in New Outlook and Outlook.com
Mail is splitting into Focused and Other tabs and you want one combined inbox — or you want the split back.
What Focused Inbox does: when it’s on, Outlook sorts your inbox into two tabs — Focused for messages it judges important, Other for the rest. The setting lives per account, and the menu path is slightly different in the new Outlook for Windows versus Outlook.com / Outlook on the web (and is unrelated to the classic Outlook ribbon button).
Step 1: Turn it on or off in new Outlook for Windows
- Open new Outlook and select View > View settings (the gear).
- Go to Mail > Layout.
- Select the account you want to change (if you have more than one).
- Under Focused Inbox, choose:
- Sort messages into Focused and Other to turn it on, or
- Don’t sort my messages to turn it off (one combined inbox).
- Select Save. When it’s on, the Focused and Other tabs appear at the top of the inbox.
Step 2: Turn it on or off in Outlook.com / on the web
- Select Settings (gear) > Mail > Layout.
- In the Focused Inbox section, choose Sort messages into Focused and Other (on) or Don’t sort my messages (off).
- Select Save.
Step 3: Fix a sender that lands in the wrong tab
Keep Focused Inbox on but retrain it for a specific sender:
- Right-click the message.
- Select Move > Move to Other inbox or Move to Focused inbox.
- To make it stick for every future message from that sender, choose Always move to Other inbox or Always move to Focused inbox.
FAQ
Where did the Focused/Other tabs go after I turned it off? Choosing “Don’t sort my messages” merges everything into a single inbox — that’s expected, nothing was deleted.
Do I have to set this per account? Yes — the setting applies to the account you select, so repeat it for each mailbox you’ve added.
Is this the same as the classic Outlook ribbon toggle? No. Classic Outlook has a Focused Inbox button on the View ribbon; new Outlook and Outlook.com use the Layout settings shown above.