The default fields in the Outlook Inbox are From, Subject, Received, Size, and Mentions.
There are a number of fields and columns that can be added or removed, but one of them does not exist:
Days Old.
It is possible to calculate the date of an email using the day-old function if you want to know how old it is.
Creating a user-defined field and writing a formula can add old emails to your inbox.
You can see how old the days are by counting the days old in your inbox.
A reminder may be sent to remind you to follow up on an email.
Sorting by the user-defined field isn’t possible, but it will work if you sort by another area.
Steps to get Number of Days Old emails are in your Inbox
Outlook inbox or any other folder consists of columns that help users identify most of the information at a glance, such as:
- From
- Subject
- Received
- Size
- and a lot of other options
You can also customize the column according to your comfort. Here in this article, you can learn how to customize a column that displays the received time with x days ago, adding a user-defined formula field in Inbox to achieve it.
To calculate the days, it is required to add a formula in the backhand.
Go to the view tab and click add a column from the arrangement section.
That will take you to the Show column dialog box, click the new column here.
A new column dialog box appears.
There is another approach to get there.
Right-click on the column and click on the field chooser.
Click new from the field chooser dialog box.
That will also take you to the new column dialog box.
In the popping out New Column dialog box:
- Name the new column in the Name box,
- Select Formula from the Type drop-down list,
- Click the Edit button.
- Type the formula in the Formula Field dialog box,
- Finally, click the OK buttons successively.
Day’s old formula is DateDiff(“d”,[Received],Now()) & ” days”
Let’s Check Out how it looks
Now it’s time to add your customized column to the folder and make it live. There are two methods to do that:
- Traditional and long method.
- Drag and drop shortcut method.
Let’s go through the first traditional method:
Go to the view tab and go to the view settings from the current view settings from the left navigation panel.
Advanced view settings dialog box appears that will get you to the Show Columns dialog box,
Select ‘User-defined fields in inbox‘ from the drop-down list of the left navigation panel.
Please keep the new formula column selected in the Show these columns in this order list box, click the Move Up or Move Down buttons to adjust its order, and click the OK button.
As of now, the specified user-defined formula field has been added to the Inbox folder and shows the received time as x days ago.
The second method is the Drag and drops shortcut method.
Right, click on the column any column that will open a few options, and select field chooser.
Select User-defined fields in Inbox, which will list out your added formula form.
Very carefully select the tab available in User defined fields in Inbox and drag it to the column and drop where you like to add the column.
In both the above cases you can observe a column added in your folder that reveals the days old.
The only drawback is outlook won’t allow sorting by day difference, you can sort by any other option like received, from, subject, and a lot more.
You can easily remove the column anytime by clicking the right mouse button and hitting “Remove this column“.
In case you want to add back the color you need to repeat the above process.
That way you can identify the emails in your inbox with Day’s old Field, and you can remove those unnecessary emails from the folder, there are a few other options to separate the old emails using new search folder options.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I rearrange columns in Outlook email?
Rearranging the column in Outlook is very simple, you can simply drag the column from the original location and drop it into the location you like to change.
How to change the width of the column in Outlook?
Changing the width of a column is also very simple, just drag the end line up to where you like to keep the width.
Final Words
In conclusion, adding a Days Old field to your Inbox in Outlook is a great way to quickly calculate the age of emails you need to respond to.
This will help you respond to emails in a timely manner, so your inbox isn’t overloaded with messages. With this quick and easy guide, you now have the ability to calculate the age of emails in Outlook.