self-enlightenment

I’ve always liked the workflow Gmail implemented by having an Archive “folder” (its really only a label in Gmail) and encouraging me to keep my inbox clean; although I’m always surprised when I see people retain thousands of emails in their inbox.  When working with Outlook 2011 on the Mac, I want the same effect:  I created an Archive folder and move every email I’ve read and dealt with into that folder.

Unfortunately Outlook doesn’t have a built-in way for automatically moving an email into a named folder.  When you invoke the Move To Folder… key combination, it prompts for a folder name.

Its possible, however, to write a script and attach it as a key combination.  Here’s the script:

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
	activate
	set msgSet to current messages
	if msgSet = {} then
		error "No messages selected. Select at least one message."
		error -128
	end if
	set theMsg to item 1 of msgSet
	set theAccount to account of theMsg
	set archiveFolder to folder "Archive" of folder "Inbox" of theAccount
	repeat with aMessage in msgSet
		move aMessage to archiveFolder
	end repeat
end tell

About the only thing you may need to customize is the path to and name of your Archive folder.

set archiveFolder to folder "Archive" of folder "Inbox" of theAccount

To use the script:

1. From Outlook, click the little Script symbol to the right of the Help menu.
2. Select About This Menu…
3. Click Open Folder button
4. Save the above script in a file called “Archive\cA” to this folder. – Yes, that name is correct; it associates the script with the keyboard shortcut CTRL+A. You may find it easiest to save the script to a file on your Desktop, then drag it into the finder window that was opened

Now, highlight an email message and press CTRL+A. It will move the highlighted email into the Archive folder.

About the only caveat is that sometimes it is a little “slow”, and if you’re quick enough, you can type CTRL+A but then move your focus onto another email which is then archived instead.