Any of Outlook's default views can be modified to suit your needs. You can customize the fields displayed, sorting, grouping, filtering, fonts, and other formatting options.

Outlook, like other Office applications, supports AutoCorrect - a feature that allows Outlook to correct common spelling and typing errors and to replace characters with symbols. You also can use AutoCorrect as a shortcut, which means you can type a small string of characters and have those characters replaced by a longer string.

Like the Inbox and other message views, the Calendar view also has a Reading Pane that lets you preview appointments and other items in your schedule without opening them.

Outlook uses two features to resolve and complete names entered into email messages: AutoComplete and AutoResolution.

The Navigation Bar at the bottom of the Navigation Pane in Outlook includes the buttons for switching to Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Folders, and Shortcuts views. By default, Microsoft Outlook displays Mail, Calendar, People, and Tasks text buttons, and you need the ellipsis button for other options. However, you can switch from texts to icons, remove and reorder buttons on the Navigation Bar.

By default, Outlook shows document tooltips (or screentips) when you hover on a button, but this option can be turned off.

vCard, also known as an electronic business card in Outlook, contains contact information similar to paper business cards. You can exchange electronic business cards in vCard format via MMS or instant messaging and send it as an email attachment. If you contact a lot of new people and want them to have your or another person's contact information, you can send your vCard in every email. This lets recipients enter the information in their address book quickly and without errors by importing your electronic business card from the attachment.

AutoArchive in Outlook moves old items to a local archive data file to reduce the size of your mailbox. Global AutoArchive settings apply to the entire account, but you can define a more precise policy for some folders.

This rule is useful if you receive a lot of messages from your colleagues and use rules to copy or move correspondence to the specific folders (like Rule to copy all correspondence on some subject to the specific folder or Rule to move all correspondence on some subject to the specific folder). Unfortunately those rules do not work for messages with an empty subject, but you still can create a rule to send an automatic response if the incoming message does not have a subject.

Usually, Outlook users use folders to organize messages, but you can also use colors, fonts, and styles. For example, you can assign a unique color to all messages from a particular person, e.g., your boss. Now, you can easily spot the emails from that person in your inbox and other mail folders.