How to Create a Custom Navigation Pane in Outlook

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Outlook’s navigation pane lets you navigate to different folders, mailboxes, and groups. However, it includes folders you might never access but can’t hide. Here’s how to create a custom navigation pane that shows just what you need.

If you only ever use Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, and Archive, this guide probably isn’t for you. Just add those folders to your Favorites (which you can learn how to do in our guide to the Navigation pane) and you’re good to go. But if you’ve got a lot of folders, access to various shared mailboxes, or you’re a member of multiple Office 365 groups, you might find the Navigation pane a bit overwhelming and untidy. Adding all of the folders you want to Favorites just won’t cut it, as there are too many to keep organized.

Instead, you can create your own custom navigation pane that contains just what you want, and nothing else. To do this, click on the “Shortcuts” icon at the bottom of the Navigation pane.

This will open up the blank Shortcuts pane.

To add a shortcut to the pane, right-click the “Shortcuts” title (right-clicking anywhere else in the pane won’t do anything) and select “New Shortcut.”