Search Folder for all Meeting related messages

I organize and attend quite a few meetings with somewhat larger groups and I therefor receive a lot of "Calendar messages" like meeting requests, accept, decline, canceled messages, new time proposals, etc…

I tend to ignore these during the day to get some work done and because Outlook processes most of them automatically anyway.

However, at set times, I still want to go through these messages, especially to process the feedback that some people gave in their reply and to process the new time proposals.

Is there any way I can quickly filter or otherwise search my mailbox so I will only see all these "Calendar messages"?

Meeting Messages Search Folder buttonThe easiest approach in this case would be to create a Search Folder which searches for a specific Message Class.

A Message Class in Outlook determines what type of message it is. All Meeting related messages are part of the IPM.Schedule.Meeting class for which you can create a filter condition.

As an alternative, you can also apply a filter to your Inbox folder via a Custom View or perform a Search query.

Method 1: Creating the Meeting Messages Search Folder

Follow the steps below to create a Search Folder with an Advanced Filter based on the Message Class for Meeting Messages.

  1. Create a new Search Folder in one of the following ways:
    • Keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+P
    • Right click on “Search Folders” in the Folder Pane and choose: New Search Folder…
    • Classic Ribbon
      Folder-> New Search Folder
  2. In the dialog that pops-up, scroll to the bottom and choose: Create a custom Search Folder
  3. Press the “Choose…” button.
  4. Name the Search Folder.
    For instance: Meeting Messages
  5. Optionally: To prevent already processed Meeting messages to show up and only show Meeting messages within your Inbox;
    1. Press the Browse… button and
    2. remove the checkbox in front of your mailbox and
    3. only select your Inbox and
    4. disable the option: Search subfolders.
    5. Press to return to the Search Folder Customize dialog.
  6. Press the “Criteria…” button.
  7. Select the “Advanced” tab
  8. Type the following in the fields below:
    • Field: Message Class
    • Condition: contains
    • Value: IPM.Schedule.Meeting
  9. Press the “Add to List” button.
  10. Press OK until all open dialogs are closed.

Add Search Folder criteria to find all Meeting messages.
Add Search Folder criteria to find all Meeting messages.

Note: Deleting invites will not remove the tentatively accepted meeting from the Calendar, you'll need to decline it instead. For more information see: Deleting a Meeting Invitation doesn’t delete the Meeting itself from the Calendar.

Method 2: Filter your View

Filter buttonIf you don’t like to be distracted from all these meeting messages in your Inbox folder, you can also apply a filter to your view.

This works pretty much in the same way but you then use the condition doesn’t contain.

  1. Open the View Settings dialog:
    • Simplified Ribbon
      View-> Current View-> View Settings…
    • Classic Ribbon
      View-> View Settings
  2. Press the “Filter…” button.
  3. Select the “Advanced” tab.
  4. Type the following in the fields below:
    • Field: Message Class
    • Condition: doesn’t contain
    • Value: IPM.Schedule.Meeting
  5. Press OK until all open dialogs are closed.

View Filter criteria to exclude Meeting Messages from your view.
The View Filter criteria is slightly different from the Search Folder criteria.

Note: To quickly apply the View Filter to multiple folders see Applying custom views to all folders at once.

Method 3: Search query

If you want to do a quick search query based on the message class, use the following search query:

messageclass:ipm.schedule.meeting

Since both “schedule” and “meeting” are pretty unique for the message class, you can also shorten this to one of the following to get the same results:

messageclass:schedule
or
messageclass:meeting

Search query messagesclass:ipm.schedule.meeting