How to Use a Free Add on to Tame an Outlook Inbox

Are you like the person in the TV commercial -- living at the crossroads between an out-of-control schedule and an out-of-control inbox? If you are, never fear, because a free Microsoft Outlook add-on called Xobni is going to tame the beast called your INBOX. Xobni (Inbox spelled backward) has a slick search function that will allow you to dump many of your Outlook folders and subfolders, easily track the threads of your e-mail conversations with everyone in your contact list, and even grab profile information from LinkedIn.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007
• Internet connection
• Xobni ddd-on

Take Back Your Inbox With Xobni

1. 
   Click the Download button to start your Zobni installation

   Go to Xobni (pronounced ZOB-nee) and click the big yellow button to download the add-on. Your computer will download the ZobniSetup.exe file. Remember where the file was saved. Once download is complete, click the file name to launch installation. Click "I Agree" to accept the user license agreement.

2. Xobni will, by default, install itself into your folder C:\Program Files\Xobni. If you want to install Zobni in another directory, click Browse to choose the new location. Once the location is chosen, click Install. If your version of Outlook is running, you'll need to click OK to close Outlook before installation can proceed. When Setup is complete, click Next.

3. 
   Zobni control panel indexes your e-mails after installation

   Click finish to complete installation and launch Outlook. Instead of your normal Outlook display, you'll see a new panel docked to the right side of Outlook's screen. Once Zobni is installed, it will immediately begin indexing your existing mail. Once your mail is indexed, the fun begins.Following indexing, Zobni will analyze all of your e-mails so it can display a list of related people, show historical conversations and display any files that have been exchanged between you and a contact.

4. Click on any e-mail and watch the magic in the Zobni sidebar begin. The first thing you'll notice is every communication you've ever had with the person sending the e-mail, including a graph denoting the times of day this particular contact sent you e-mail. What good is this information? If you only receive e-mails from someone after 10 in the morning, it's probably a safe bet that they're not a morning person.

5. 
   Zobni contact panels

   Look at the Network section of the sidebar to find contacts in common, the Conversations section to track down an e-mail topic from two weeks ago, or Files Exchanged to see a list of every file you and the active contact have shared. How cool is that.

6. Click any historical e-mail header in the Conversations panel, and a new panel will open displaying the entire e-mail message. Never again will you have to leave what you're doing to search through old e-mails. Or, if you're trying to track down all instances of a software product a friend told you about, just type it in the search box and Zobni will (almost) instantly display every e-mail that ever contained the name of the software. Search is blazing fast.

7. Once you begin taming the Outlook beast by integrating all of the contact information with conversations, files and historical e-mails, you'll never pull the plug on this amazing free Microsoft Outlook add-on.

Tips & Warnings

• To view the LinkedIn profiles information for your contacts, click the Zobni menu icon, then click Options. Check the box to integrate Zobni with LinkedIn. Once activated, you can click directly from the Zobni sidebar to your contact's LinkedIn profile.
• If you have a large number of e-mails, be patient. It takes Zobni several minutes to index and analyze thousands of e-mails.

Resources

• Zobni Outlook Add-On