Windows 10: Outlook Focused Inbox now available to all, and no more Clutter

Brink · Mar 28, 2019

It’s been just over a year since our last post about Focused Inbox and our plans for Clutter. We’re posting again to remind you that Clutter will not be available after January 31, 2020.

Focused Inbox is now available to all Office 365 customers using the Monthly Channel of Office 365 ProPlus, in Office 2019 for Windows and Mac, and in Outlook for iOS and Android.

Focused Inbox helps you focus on the emails that matter most to you. It separates your inbox into two tabs—Focused and Other. Emails you need to act on right away are in the Focused tab, while the rest wait for you in Other. You can switch between tabs at any time to take a quick look.

We’ve had a lot of feedback since we launched Focused Inbox and we’ve used it to improve the quality and accuracy of the technology that powers it.

We want to you to really enjoy the switch to Focused Inbox – and here are answers to some of the common questions we hear:

So what happens after January 31, 2020?
After January 31, 2020 we will no longer move any messages to the Clutter folder in the mailbox, and we will convert the existing Clutter folder to a regular user folder. We also won’t do anything to the messages in the Clutter folder, or remove the folder. We will stop sending digest notifications, and we will remove the options in OWA, the API’s and the admin tools.

Can I keep using Clutter instead of Focused Inbox?
You can keep using the existing Clutter experience until January 31, 2020. However, after that date, Clutter will be completely replaced by Focused Inbox.

So what do I have to do to enable Focused Inbox?
You can find information about how to enable Focused Inbox for each supported client here.

What happens if I’m not using Outlook mobile, or OWA, or one of the supported clients?
If you are not using one of the supported clients then emails that would previously have been moved to the Clutter folder will remain in your Inbox. As a workaround you can create rules to move mails from your Inbox to another folder, but of course the experience will be much simpler if you use Outlook. Want to see how it works in Outlook mobile? Check out this short video.

I’m the admin for my tenant – how can I switch my users from Clutter to Focused Inbox?
Office 365 admins can manage the rollout of Focused Inbox for their users with tenant and mailbox level controls using PowerShell. To learn more, see “Configure Focused Inbox for everyone in your organization”

I’m the admin for my tenant – how can I make sure important company emails land in the Focused tab?
Tenant admins have controls to ensure certain business critical communications, like HR, Payroll, etc., always land in the user’s Focused tab of the Inbox. These whitelists can be set up using mail flow rules from the Admin center or via PowerShell cmdlets. After these are set up successfully, all future messages that satisfy these mail flow rules would be delivered in the Focused tab of the Inbox on Outlook clients that support Focused Inbox.

Why don’t I see Focused Inbox in my Outlook client?
It might be because you aren’t using a supported version of Outlook. Make sure you are using a supported version and it should be available.

We really have put a lot of work in to Focused Inbox to make using Outlook more productive for as many users as we can, we hope you’ll try it, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.
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Source: Focused Inbox, no more Clutter - Microsoft Tech Community - 389791

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Brink · Mar 28, 2019

Outlook - Update on Focused Inbox and plans for Clutter

In July 2016 we announced that Focused Inbox, a new feature in Outlook that helps you cut through the noise of email to focus on what matters most, would be coming to Office 365 customers. Focused Inbox first rolled out to customers who use modern authentication, and earlier this month we added support for basic authentication. This means that Focused Inbox is now available to all Office 365 customers on the Monthly Channel of Office 365 ProPlus. If you aren’t seeing it yet, be sure your Outlook version is updated to build 16.0.8730 Version 1711 or greater. Focused Inbox will be available to customers on the Semi-Annual Channel in the March 2018 Semi-Annual Targeted release, and the July 2018 Semi-Annual release, according to that channel’s standard schedule.

With Focused Inbox now rolled out, we’d like to share more about our plans for Clutter. As we mentioned in July, Focused Inbox is the long-term replacement for Clutter. It carries forward Clutter’s capabilities but removes the need to visit a separate folder to check your less-actionable messages. Because Clutter and Focused Inbox use the same algorithms for sorting messages, there are no changes to how email is classified, just a better user experience.

We’ll continue to make Clutter available to Office 365 customers until January 31, 2020. To prepare for Clutter’s eventual retirement, we’ve turned the feature off by default for new users. It’s also deactivated for those with extremely low usage (less than 12 emails per month being moved to the Clutter folder), however they can re-enable Clutter at any time, if desired.

If your organization is using Clutter today, the process for transitioning to Focused Inbox depends on what version of Outlook you are using.

Subscription version of Outlook (Outlook 2016 as part of Office 365 ProPlus or Office 365 Business): As users in your organization update Outlook to the latest version, those who currently use Clutter will be prompted to give Focused Inbox a try. If they decide to switch, Clutter will be turned off automatically for that user—no administrator action is required. If they don’t switch, messages will continue to move to the Clutter folder until the January 2020 end of service date arrives. As an administrator you can also activate Focused Inbox for your whole organization rather than giving individual users the choice. See the resources at the end of this post for details.

Perpetual version of Outlook (Outlook 2016 MSI or earlier version): These versions of Outlook do not support Focused Inbox. To transition from Clutter to Focused Inbox, you can upgrade to Office 365 ProPlus (available today) or Outlook 2019, which is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2018 and will include support for Focused Inbox. If you don’t upgrade Outlook before January 2020, messages will stop being moved to the Clutter folder, and will revert to being placed in the inbox.
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Source: Update on Focused Inbox and our plans for Clutter - Microsoft Tech Community

Greg Carmack - Windows MVP · Mar 28, 2019

Focused inbox

According to
Microsoft is Expanding the Availability of Focused Inbox for Outlook - Thurrott.com

it should have arrived by now but I still only have it on my Android Phone Outlook app, so it seems there's a delay.

Julie Ram · Mar 28, 2019

Focused and Other inboxes in Outlook

Hi Madeline,

To help you out with your concern, you may follow the steps provided on thislink
on how to turn off Focused Inbox.

Let us know how it goes.

Thank you.

Windows 10: Outlook Focused Inbox now available to all, and no more Clutter

Outlook Focused Inbox now available to all, and no more Clutter

Outlook Focused Inbox now available to all, and no more Clutter

Outlook Focused Inbox now available to all, and no more Clutter

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