Show Number of Emails in Inbox in Outlook Webmail


Webmail has come a long way. The Office 365 version of Outlook is arguably just as user-friendly as the full desktop application. Still, there are a few things I’ve missed since transitioning to primary using the web version of Office 365 Outlook, at least until I figured out solutions.

One thing I missed was being able to create a calendar appointment from an email. However, I eventually figured out how to do it and shared the steps in this post.

Today we are going to look at how to see how many emails are in your Inbox or another folder. Outlook.com shows you how many new emails you have in your Inbox, but not the total number of emails. We all would like to see that number be zero, but knowing the number has gone down helps provide a sense of accomplishment.

In the desktop version of Outlook, the bottom left corner of the program shows the total number of messages in the active folder. It’s possible to get this total number in webmail, but it takes a bit more effort.

Show the Total Number of Messages in a Folder

The first step is to open the the folder you want messages counted in.

The number of NEW messages in your Inbox.

The image above shows that I have 8 new messages in my Inbox. However, what I want to see is the total number of messages in my inbox.

To get the total number, follow these steps.

  1. Click next to any email to create a checkbox.
Click the circle next to any message to add a checkmark
  1. Click the checkmark next to Inbox. This will select all of the emails in the folder.
Select all messages in your Inbox
  1. Click the check mark next to any message
Shows the total number of conversations in your Inbox

The Reading Pane shows you the number of conversations (minus 1) in your folder. In the example above, I have a total of 43 conversations in my Inbox.

a Conversation is a series of messages with the same Subject Line and considered a thread.

While this isn’t the same as always seeing a total count in Outlook, it is an easy way to get a count.

Dave Carty

K12 district technology administrator, Google domain admin, Certified Google Trainer.

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