The best tutorial was this blog article, descriptively called Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts to Move a Message to a Folder: http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/general/outlook-email-shortcuts
You can basically follow that exact walk through with the following caveats:
- The macro he links (which, by the way, was broken for me, I had to google it: http://verychewy.com/archive/2006/04/12/outlook-macro-to-move-an-email-to-folder.aspx ) is great for just moving stuff around, however we want to mark it read (or unread), so we need to use this version: http://www.yeraze.com/article.php/outlook_macro_move_to_folder_mark_Read It is the same, except it has "objItem.UnRead = False" pasted right above "objItem.Move objFolder." Rather obviously, you need to switch this to 'true' for the folders you want inbound mail marked 'unread', and leave it 'false' for the ones you want marked read.
- SelfCert.exe, at least on this machine, is a weird piece of software: the interface of which was all question marks...as in ???????? ????????? ????????--it performs as advertised if you just follow the steps described on the Microsoft website (hit enter instead of OK after you type your name if you can't tell which ?????????? button is which), however it wasn't located where the site said it should be--I had to do a search to find it
- The instructions at http://blogs.technet.com/kclemson/archive/2003/09/25/53794.aspx for creating keyboard shortcuts is a little bit unclear for my taste--the basics are there, but I modified their technique significantly.
- First, pick the letters you want to use for your shortcuts. I realized I had two "A" folders, so I renamed Archive to Vault. I also choose to display them "Image and Text", and picked cute little pictograms to represent my five folders. Also, Temp Hold got renamed "hold" since I couldn't figure out how to make the two word name work in the macro.
- Second you can drag the new macro buttons wherever you like, not just on the standard toolbar. I put them up next to File Edit etc.
- Third, you can use whatever letters you want, but you need to delete the & signs from the names of the commands that originally had them. For example, if you want Hold to be "alt-h", you need to rename the Help menue from "&Help" (the current alt-h) to just "Help" . If the letter you want to use isn't displayed with an underline on the current toolbars, you're in luck...do note when looking for conflicting letters that it doesn't have to be the first letter (I'm looking at you, Find)
- Finally, if you open any piece of mail, you can customize it, too. That way if you're reading a message (or clicked 'ok' on the "you have new mail, would you like to read, like I just did") you can add all your buttons (using the exact same process as above) to disposition the message without ever even opening your full outlook window
- Helpful Hint: it isn't very intuitive, but the renaming command and other properties are only available while the 'Customize Toolbar' window is open. You'll see what I mean once you try to start doing it.
- The first time you try to run your macro (or possibly the first time you close and relaunch outlook, and THEN try to run it), it will prompt you asking if you want to trust macros from "your name"...check 'trust always' and click yes, and you won't have to do it again. It is important that you digitally sign your macro project using the SelfCert or it won't let you run them next session and this will be a big pile of wasted effort.
- All in all, this is a reasonably simple process, and barely requires anything more than basic Office knowledge. YMMV with different versions, and obviously this is Windows only (there are easier ways to do it on a mac, they are linked in the first article in this blog post), but the general steps should be basically the same.
Enjoy your new found organizational ability! Here's some pics!
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