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Outlook 2016 for Windows - message order in conversations

Hi, I'm currently getting up to speed with Outlook 2016 (for Windows 10) after several years of getting well-familiar with Outlook 2011.  Turning on conversation view in my inbox, I have discovered two unexpected headaches, which may or may not be related:

1- How do I get the messages within a thread to appear in chronological order?  Case in point: I received email #1, sent a response as email #2, received email #3 in response, and sent a response to that as email #4.  Conversation view (with "classic indented view" unchecked) orders these:

Incoming email #3 (in Inbox)

Incoming email #1 (in Inbox)

Outgoing email #4 (in Sent)

Outgoing email #2 (in Sent)


With "classic indented view" checked, it comes out as

Incoming email #1 (in Inbox)

Incoming email #3 (in Inbox)

Outgoing email #2 (in Sent)

Outgoing email #4 (in Sent)

How can I get these messages to just display in chronological order, 1-2-3-4 (or 4-3-2-1, I don't care)?  This seems to have something to do with my outgoing emails still sitting in the Sent folder; when I dragged them into the Inbox as a test, the whole thing threaded in order like I wanted (at least without "classic indented view" checked), but that is not a long-term solution.

2- Possibly related: when I initiated a thread with an outgoing email, and then received a response and had some more iterations of back-and-forth after that, conversation view does not show my original email that started the thread (still sitting in Sent).  It does show all of my later responses (also in Sent), though.  "Show messages from other folders" is checked.  In fact, when I drag outgoing email #1 into the Inbox as a test, it still does not appear as part of the conversation, it just sits off by itself. 

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer
Answer

Hello,

Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for posting your query.

I suggest you to follow the below mentioned steps and check if it helps in resolving the issue.

Step 1:

  • Open Outlook application.

  • Click on View tab and then click on View Settings

  • Under Filter tab, check if any filter are applied.

  • If yes, click on Clear all and click OK.

Also, kindly try resetting the current view and check if all the email appears. To do so, kindly click on View>View Settings>Reset Current View.  

Step 2:

Click on View tab> Show as Conversations and then click on View> Date (Conversations) to sort the email conversations according to send and receive email.

I hope the above information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance.

Thank you.

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Question Info

Last updated January 30, 2025 Views 15,366 Applies to: