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ClearContext Personal 4.5 - Free Outlook Productivity Add-On

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ClearContext Personal - Free Outlook Productivity Add-On

ClearContext Personal - Free Outlook Productivity Add-On

Heinz Tschabitscher
The Bottom Line
ClearContext Personal makes Outlook more functional by sorting the inbox intelligently, showing emails and attachments in context, handling transactional messages automatically and suggesting folders for filing.
It's a pity ClearContext's smart sorting works only for the default inbox.
Pros
  • ClearContext Personal sorts your Outlook inbox by importance
  • It's easy to file (ClearContext even suggests likely folders) messages and to browse attachments
  • You can unsubscribe from threads and have ClearContext filter status emails automatically
Cons
  • ClearContext Personal can wield its organizing wand only on the default Outlook inbox
  • More "Notification Managers" and even more automation in them could be nice
  • ClearContext Personal could assist you in composing emails and replies (based, say, on past emails)
Description
  • ClearContext Personal sorts your Outlook inbox by importance (based on the sender and your involvement in a thread).
  • To keep the inbox clear, ClearContext helps with filing by suggesting folders (based on the sender) and grouping in threads.
  • You can also see files and contacts related to a folder. Attachments appear in a special browser including previews, too.
  • "Notification Managers" filter and sort transactional and status emails (bacn) with little setup effort.
  • You can unsubscribe from threads with ClearContext Personal and have further emails in them not show up in the inbox.
  • ClearContext Personal supports Windows XP/Vista and Outlook 2003/7.
Guide Review - ClearContext Personal 4.5 - Free Outlook Productivity Add-On
You know: it's who you know. Does your Outlook know?

With ClearContext Personal, it does. Analyzing your existing emails and with whom you've exchanged them, ClearContext Personal finds out who your important contacts are. With this knowledge, it goes on to organize your Outlook inbox in much more useful a fashion than by date: the emails most likely to be most important to you — those from key contacts — on top. Unfortunately, this sorting only works in the default Outlook inbox.

Now that you have found and dealt with the essential messages, you may want to remove them from your inbox. If you don't subscribe to the "a single bucket and search" philosophy, ClearContext Personal puts a fine tool in your toolbar: with little effort, you can file messages or entire threads, and ClearContext Personal even suggests the most likely target folders (again based on the message's sender).

Speaking of threads: ClearContext Personal thankfully puts those related messages at the bottom of each email you read. For folders, ClearContext Personal provides similar summaries that offer easy access to contacts, attachments and transactional messages appearing in them. The attachments also appear in a special file browser that adds sorting and previews.

Back in the inbox, chances are you'll find tons of messages that are no top priority but not junk either: invitations from social networks, updates from stores, status messages from web applications. ClearContext Personal's "Notification Managers" not only filter these emails out of the default inbox (an easy exercise), they also categorize them further and let you work on them in bulk, at least to some degree. It's a pity ClearContext comes with such managers only for LinkedIn and Facebook. You can set up your own, though, and share.

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