Navigation Buttons take up valuable space you can better use in Outlook – here’s how.

The navigation buttons are the ones on the left of Outlook ‘Mail’ ‘Calendar’ ‘Contacts’ etc. They are big, space gobbling buttons designed for new Outlook users – once you’re past the very basics there’s better uses for the screen space.

Aside from the size, the navigation buttons make the simplistic assumption that you only have one Outlook window open. The more efficient use of Outlook is to have more than one window open (right-click on an Outlook folder and choose ‘Open in a new window’. That will let you have separate windows open at once for, say, Email, Calendar, Contacts or any other Outlook folder or view you want.

To remove the navigation buttons, simply click on the horizontal divider above the buttons and drag it down to the bottom of the pane.

On the image above and you’ll see how the mouse pointer changes when you put it over the divider.

Now the buttons appear as icons at the bottom only with more room for information you can use.

Alternatively, change the buttons that appear. For example, if you don’t use the Tasks view it can be removed from the navigation pane. Click on the wedge at bottom right then Add or Remove buttons.

Or choose ‘Navigation Pane Options …’ to get more choices including rearranging the order of the buttons.

The Font button would seem to suggest that you can change the font of the navigation buttons, but you can’t. Changing the font only applies to the folder and favorites view not the labels on the navigation buttons.

See Also

• Navigation Pane changes in Outlook 2010
• Outlook settings NOT to use: Spam
• Outlook – see more with New Window
• Outlook – see more with the Folder List
• Outlook essential shortcuts