Back in the days of Entourage, one could open separate windows for Mail, Calendar & Contacts. With Outlook 2011, Microsoft has forced the use of one window with clicking on the options at the bottom left to change from Mail to Calendar to Contacts. Different even from the way Outlook for Windows allows inline folders. So what to do?
It turns out, you can open separate windows for Outlook 2011. Here’s how: While viewing Mail, instead of on Calendar, which changes the screen from Mail to Calendar, do this instead. Right-click on any other mail folder (it doesn’t matter which one). Outlook will open a contextual menu, with the top choice being ‘Open In New Window.’ With this new window open, click on Calendar (or Contacts) at the bottom. Now, you have two windows: One with Mail and the other with Calendar.
If you are on any OS since Lion (10.7), you can use Mission Control to put one or the other in another window. And, if you have a Magic Mouse, Magic Track Pad or any portable Mac, you can swipe from window to window. On Snow Leopard, you can put each Window in it’s own Spaces.
You can find other tips by going to the blog homepage. You can find iHelp’s main offerings, here.
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I am just migrating from Windows to Mac, and had been completely accustomed to separate Outlook windows for Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and largely, the ability to have a mail open and update a calendar item, for example. The instructions here are accurate but brief. You can open another folder in a new window from, say, mail, and then change the new window to calendar. But you have to then use the Mission Control to open a new window (upper right of screen) and drag the second window there; otherwise it still won’t let you swipe between mail and calendar. You can then re-order the windows in the Mission Control so that the ones you want to have for back-and-forth are next to each other.
Thanks, David.
THANK YOU! Why on earth they didn’t include this same right-click on the calendar tab at bottom left is beyond me. Anyway, this works just fine. So thanks again.
Glad to help Richard.
Donny,
Thanks for this tip! I have been going crazy over these past 2 years trying to replicate how Mail and iCal work independently.
Free at last!