The Toolbar of Windows Mail contains many useful buttons to make e-mailing quicker and easier than using the Menu equivalents. For example. To delete an e-mail you simply click on the DELETE button instead of using the EDIT menu > DELETE menu-item. And to reply to an e-mail you simply click on the REPLY button instead of using the Message menu > REPLY TO SENDER menu-item. However. The toolbar also contains some rarely used buttons. One of which is the REPLY ALL button. It allows you to reply to the sender of an e-mail as well as Reply To All the recipents of that e-mail. The downside of using this button is that one day you might accidently send a private reply to all the recipents instead of to the sender only. Another downside is that some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) do not like you replying to 100 recipents, for example, in one go. Your ISP and/or any recipient's ISP might class your reply e-mail as Junk E-Mail. By knowing how to remove, and add, buttons you can create an uncluttered toolbar with only the buttons you need on it, which in turn means you can quickly identify those buttons.

Fig 3.0  The Windows Mail Toolbar

Before you can customize the toolbar you must first highlight one of its buttons (Fig 3.1 below) by placing the mouse pointer over it - Do not left click on the button. When the button becomes highlighted right click on it to bring up the Options menu (Fig 3.2). From there, select (left click on) the CUSTOMIZE menu-item to bring up the Customize Toolbar window (Fig 3.3).

Fig 3.1  Highlight a button by placing the mouse pointer over it, but do not left click on that button.




Fig 3.2  Right click on the button to bring up the Options menu, then select (left click on) the CUSTOMIZE menu-item.



Fig 3.3  The Customize Toolbar window

With the Customize Toolbar window now open you can begin to add and/or remove buttons. You can also make the buttons bigger, with or without their associated text labels.

The window pane on the left contains unused buttons and the window pane on the right contains the buttons you are currently using. To remove a currently-using button first select (left click on) its icon in the right window pane (Fig 3.4) and then remove it by clicking on the REMOVE button. That button's icon will then be placed in the left window pane (Fig 3.5) to let you know that the actual button has now been removed from the toolbar - Clicking on either the CLOSE button or the EXIT (Red X) button just closes the Customize Toolbar window. The button itself is removed immediately after you click on the REMOVE button.

Fig 3.4  Select a button's icon and then click on the REMOVE button



Fig 3.5  Click on the CLOSE button to close the Customize Toolbar window

To add a button to the toolbar first select (left click on) its icon in the left pane (Fig 3.6) and then decide which position you want it in on the toolbar. You can do this in one of two ways. Either by clicking on the ADD button so that the button is placed at the end of the toolbar - You can then use the MOVE UP and MOVE DOWN buttons to re-position the button. Or you can select a position in the right pane before clicking on the ADD button.

In this example I chose to add the MOVE TO button. I first clicked on its button icon in the left window pane and then clicked on the PRINT button icon in the right window pane before clicking on the ADD button. I clicked on the PRINT button icon so that the MOVE TO button would be positioned in between FORWARD and PRINT. This is because an added button is always inserted above the selected button icon (Fig 3.7).

Fig 3.6  Select a button (left pane), select its position (right pane) and then click on ADD.



Fig 3.7  Click on the CLOSE button to close the Customize Toolbar window

You can add and/or remove more than one button at a time before clicking on the CLOSE button. I only showed one at a time for tutorial reasons of course. Another thing you can do is add or remove a Seperator. A seperator is a line that can be used to seperate one or more buttons. This is good if you want to group buttons together and/or seperate certain buttons. You add or remove a Seperator button in the same way as you do for a normal button, as above.

If you do not want Text Labels to be shown with buttons on the toolbar you can switched them off by using the Text Options drop-down menu (Fig 3.8). You can also use this drop-down menu to have text labels Right Aligned (Selective Text On Right) or Placed Underneath the buttons (Show Text Labels).

Fig 3.8  Do you want Text with your Buttons?

If you want your buttons large you can use the LARGE ICONS menu-item in the Icon Options drop-down menu. The buttons will be changed immediately - You do not have to wait until you either click on the CLOSE button or click on the EXIT (Red X) button.

Fig 3.9  Do you want to use Small buttons or Large buttons?

The following example shows a toolbar with just the basic, commonly needed, buttons on it. The buttons are Large and have been seperated into individual buttons, using Seperators, except for the grouped buttons SEND/RECV, REPLY and FORWARD. This toolbar represents what I think is a clean toolbar - The buttons are large with text and are easily identifiable.

Fig 3.10  A clutter free toolbar

If you want to get rid of the Search toolbar and/or the View toolbar do the following. First right click on the Menu toolbar to bring up its Options menu (Fig 3.11 below). In other words. Look to the right of the Menu (File, Edit, View, etc) toolbar and you will see a blank area. Right click over that blank area to bring up the Options menu. From there click on each toolbar (menu-item) you want to get rid of.

In this example I am getting rid of the Search toolbar by clicking on its menu-item. This will un-tick the menu-item. From there I will bring up the Options menu again and then un-tick the View toolbar (menu-item). So when I have finished I will not see the Search and View toolbars (Fig 3.12). Do not un-tick the TOOLBAR menu-item unless you do not want to use the Windows Mail toolbar - Un-ticking the TOOLBAR menu-item means you want to use the Menu toolbar only and not the Windows Mail (buttons) toolbar as well.

Fig 3.11  Un-Tick each unwanted toolbar by clicking on its menu-item




Fig 3.12  A really clutter free toolbar

The next, final, customisation section teaches you how to create sub-folders within the Inbox for example.

Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation.  As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.

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