Earlier we had a sneak peek at some of the new upcoming advanced features of Hotmail M2.  Now that I have the new Hotmail, let us see the new and improved Flags feature.

All Hotmail user at some point of time must have used the Flags feature in Hotmail to mark that email as important. But once you flag them, you have to keep a track of that flagged mail, as it gets pushed down, with the arrival of new mail. Sometimes you might even lose track, by forgetting about that flagged mail or you may have to look at Quick Views.

The new release of Hotmail has changed and improved how the flags work. Now when you flag an email, it gets pinned and remains on top of the Inbox even when more new emails arrives and thus the flagged email is instantly available.

Hotmail has kept in mind those users who are used to the way flags were used earlier. So when you flag an email – it gets flagged like before, and it shows up in the Quick Views > Flagged – but now the mail also moves to the top of Inbox.

As you can see, the flagged mails are at top of Inbox and are always immediately available. Flagged emails are shown from all folders. When you un-flag an email, it goes back to its position in the message list. One can flag or unflag a message just by clicking on the flag icon in the message list.

Get the old Flagging feature back in Hotmail

Now as I said earlier, Hotmail has kept in mind those users also who just want the earlier behavior of flags. So how to get that? Its simple – First close the flagged area clicking on the collapse arrow.

Once it collapses, click on the Close box

It will warn you before Turning off the new flagging option.That’s all.

One can get the new flagging feature back from the Options >More Options > Flagging (under Customizing Hotmail).

Now there can be another scenario, where some users wants to have both old and new flag features. You may to flag some mails that they think not as important but want to come back to it later. And maybe you also want to flag important mails that has to be shown above the Inbox. This also has been taken care of by Hotmail Team, which we will see in our next post which uses some more new features of Hotmail.

As this new Hotmail is being rolled out gradually, don’t worry if you haven’t yet got this. It’ll soon be available to you too.