Office 2013 In Depth

Working with Received Email

New email is downloaded when you open Outlook and it connects to your mail server (you must be connected to the Internet or your corporate network for this to happen). When Outlook opens, it selects your email inbox (by default) and lists your emails in the Details pane, including any new email messages that have been downloaded from your mail server. The most recent message (the newest) in the Inbox appears at the top of the list and is also previewed in the Reading pane. This is because Outlook groups your email in your inbox by date, by default.

Reading mail is really just a matter of selecting the message that you want to read; the message appears in the Reading pane. You can also open a message in a separate window: ...