12 Must Have Useful and Free Microsoft Outlook Add-Ins
Microsoft Outlook is one of the most famous desktop email clients which allows you to read emails, schedule appointments, take notes, manage your contacts all from the confines of your desktop.
Outlook in itself is quite sufficient for most users but there are quite a few tools which make using Outlook a much better experience. In this post we will look at the top 12 add-ins for Microsoft Outlook which will make it more useful in your day to day life.
Xobni
If you have been using Outlook for quite some time you may be stuck with tons and tons of emails which may be difficult to find when you want. Xobni (our favorite add-in) is a Outlook plug-in that helps you organize you emails and quickens your search for email and attachments.
For those who think of the name as a bit weird, it is Inbox spelled backwards.
Xobni provides you with lots of features which include
- Lightning fast email search.
- Threaded Conversations.
- Email Analytics.
- Quick attachment discovery.
- Navigate your inbox by people.Blog
- Extracts Phone numbers from emails and associates it with contacts.
- Helps you easily schedule appointments with your contacts.
Outlook Duplicate Item Remover
Over a period of time Outlook may contain lots of duplicate emails, events, contact information and notes. Tracking and removing the duplicate entries can become quite a hassle.
The problem with having duplicate entries for email, contacts, calendar and notes can be easily tackled with a very useful and handy add-in called Outlook Duplicate Item Remover (ODIR).
Read our review of Outlook Duplicate Item Remover to learn more about it.
Download Outlook Duplicate Item Remover
Taglocity
Another Outlook add-in which makes email overload a thing of the past. Taglocity allows you to add in the much needed feature of tagging emails, tasks, contacts and calendar entries.
Tags as most of you must know by now make your life much more easier with finding content and Taglocity adds that missing touch to Microsoft Outlook. Read more in our review of Taglocity.
Google Calendar Sync
Google Calendar Sync is not exactly a Microsoft Outlook add-in, but we recommended this utility for those who want to synchronize their calendars between multiple Outlook installations.
To synchronize your calendar between multiple Outlook installations download and install Google Calendar Sync on both PCs. You can then use your Google account as a central storage for calendar events and keep both your Outlook installations in sync.
When you add or update events in one PC, the Google Calendar Sync will automatically add it to your Google Account from where the software installed on the other PC will download the event and add it to your other Outlook installation. As simple as ABC.
Easy2Add
Easy2Add is a neat little add-in that allows you to quickly add events to your Outlook Calendar, the interface is quite similar to adding quick events to Google Calendar and can come in quite handy when you want to quickly add a event without opening the Outlook Interface.
You can type the events in plain English and Easy2Add will automatically take care of adding the event.
Live Search Maps
Got an appointment in 10 minutes but don’t know the directions to get there the Live Search Maps add-in will direct you to your destination.
The Live Search Maps add-in shows you directions and travel times to your destinations all within the comfort of Outlook.
Social Networking Microsoft Outlook Add-Ins
If you are into social networking and don’t want to hop skip and jump to various websites to network with you friends and family, here are some add-ins that you save you time and keep you productive too.
OutSync
OutSync is a Microsoft Outlook add-in that will automatically sync photos of your friends from your Facebook account with those present in your Outlook contact list.
FBLook
FBLook or Facebook for Outlook allows you to easily update your Facebook status from within Outlook. It also allows you to set the status to the song you are currently playing on Windows Media Player or iTunes. Read our review of FBLook.
OutTwit
OutTwit is a tool that brings Twitter to Microsoft Outlook. Using the tool you can easily update your Twitter status and follow your friends from right within Outlook.
The tweets from your friends are saved as emails into a separate folder you choose. Read our review of OutTwit
Other tools Worth Mentioning For Microsoft Outlook
Outlook Personal Folders Backup
As the name suggests the Outlook Personal Folders Backup allows you to easily backup your PST (Personal Folder) files and store it in a safe location.
Learn More and Download Outlook Personal Folders Backup
Google Desktop
Want the precision and lightning fast search capabilities of Google Search for your Outlook email? Google Desktop Search is one of the best available options that will allow you to quickly find emails that are buried deep inside your archives without going through much trouble.
They always say when nothing works try Google and it holds true for Google Desktop search for Outlook emails too 
.
Learn More and Download Google Desktop
OggSync
OggSync is another handy utility that will allow you to sync your Outlook contacts and calendar entry between Outlook and your Gmail account. The newer version supports all contact fields in your Gmail Address book.
Summarizing
Well that’s a lot of useful add-ins to play around with but how can it be complete without you contributing your own useful add-ins to the list? I would love to hear what tools you use to make Outlook a better experience and definitely want to try it out. Do let me know about them through your comments.
Nirmal
June 6th, 2008 at 7:40 am #
Great List Keith,
I have not used all in the list, tried out Xobni, its wonderful.
Reply to this comment
Joel
June 6th, 2008 at 9:13 am #
Great list…having been using most of them except for the social networking ones…
Reply to this comment
VitaminCM
June 8th, 2008 at 7:41 am #
Great article.
Here is a similar article that mentions great Outlook plug-ins. It has a few that are not mentioned here.
Reply to this comment
Keith Dsouza Reply:
June 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Thanks, I checked it out and found quite a few other interesting add-ins
Reply to this comment
multitaskingmama Reply:
June 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am
One add-in that has increased my personal productivity and helped organize Outlook for my day-to-day to do list is the Foresight product. You can check it out at http://www.enhanceyouroutlook.com
Reply to this comment
multitaskingmama
June 9th, 2008 at 7:39 am #
One other add-in that has helped me increase my personal productivity and organize Outlook in a way that works for me is the Foresight product. Has anyone tried it?
Reply to this comment
multitaskingmom
June 9th, 2008 at 7:53 am #
I checked out the above. Many are interesting and look helpful. One that was not listed that has helped increase my productivity and get to the end of my to list is the Foresight product. Check it out at enhanceyouroutlook.com
Reply to this comment
Niyaz
August 25th, 2008 at 3:42 am #
Great list!!!
Was helpful…
Reply to this comment
intowindows
October 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am #
Great post brother..Thanks.
Reply to this comment
Mike Jones
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:02 am #
Thanks for the list. I have found plaxo to be fantastic as I can ask people to update their own information in my contact book and I sync contacts between my different computers using plaxo. I have had it for four years and have had no spam or securuty issues.
I am installing xobni now!
Mike
Reply to this comment
nicoposting
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 am #
good article, thanks for the tips
Reply to this comment
Solid Blogger
December 10th, 2008 at 10:09 am #
It’s quite a useful list man. I am very addicted to outlook. This will surely help me. Thanks
Reply to this comment
coool
December 16th, 2008 at 6:07 pm #
Cool article
Reply to this comment
Tom At The Home Business Archive
December 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am #
Thanks for the list.I have been using Outlook, but I need to take advantage of the other stuff as well.
Reply to this comment
Bill M
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm #
Good List – I personally use the Google Calendar Sync
Reply to this comment
The Moneyac
January 5th, 2009 at 12:57 pm #
Wow great list.
I am using outlook every single day, and to be honest I had no idea about these plugins, great list ! Thanks.
Cheers,
The Moneyac
Reply to this comment
Nicholas | pixobyte.com
January 5th, 2009 at 3:35 pm #
Wow.. gr8 collection.. of outlook addins.. really cool. Thanks for sharing!
Reply to this comment
Internet Business Mentoring
January 13th, 2009 at 6:32 am #
Okay, you aren’t going to believe this. But I never liked outlook for email. For me it wasn’t a clean, template design and I just didn’t favor it as my primary email account.
After seeing these plugins I am thinking I may just have to get over it, as some would just make my life soo much easier.
Thanks for offering this, you may have converted me back to Outlook…I will let you know
Megan
Internet Business Mentoring
Reply to this comment
oknazzz
January 16th, 2009 at 3:02 pm #
cool, i like it
Reply to this comment
PS3
January 17th, 2009 at 11:25 am #
Some cracking finds there, just a shame my works policy will not let me even install a screensaver, let alone outlook plugins.
Reply to this comment
Solid Blogger
January 19th, 2009 at 9:59 am #
Cool post. But you have missed several other plugins.
Reply to this comment
PS3
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:35 am #
Remembered to get back to this post from home and installed Easy To Add. Nice littel app, thanks.
Reply to this comment
andy
January 26th, 2009 at 1:39 pm #
t’s quite a useful list man. I am very addicted to outlook. This will surely help me. Thanks
Reply to this comment
Motorcycle Trader
January 28th, 2009 at 1:12 am #
Great list…
I have been using Outlook, but I need to take advantage of the other stuff as well.
And dis is very helpful….
Thnx buddy
Reply to this comment
Gautam
February 11th, 2009 at 6:28 pm #
Great list there keith . . .
Reply to this comment
doktertomi
February 11th, 2009 at 6:52 pm #
i need plugins to synchronize my contact between Outlook and my windows mobile’s PDA. any suggestion?
Reply to this comment
luxorhotellasvegas
February 19th, 2009 at 10:30 am #
thanks for you post, really brilliant
Reply to this comment
Rico
February 19th, 2009 at 2:32 pm #
Great stuff!
I tried to find a regular copy of Outlook a while back…
Is there one available (eg an ‘a la carte’ version’ of Outlook)?
Reply to this comment
Randy
February 25th, 2009 at 5:33 pm #
Definately try Plaxo! It is great for syncing several computers. I am a factory rep and we use it between all of our other reps and the main office to sync our contacts….one person makes a change and everyone elses info is updated for the contact
Reply to this comment
Armand
March 1st, 2009 at 2:23 pm #
Great info. I only use MS Outlook for downloading emails and synchronizing my contacts. I don’t know if there’s anything more we can use
thanks
Reply to this comment
KW at PerfectMOney
March 4th, 2009 at 7:42 am #
My comment is.is it really necessary to “pimp your out look out “if other email service already give you more then enough:yea the benefit outlook is we can work it offline,.however still I dont really feel Microsoft out look is important to work with email if the internet is not available
Reply to this comment
CPU
March 18th, 2009 at 10:27 am #
Hello! I am from Belarus. Therefore, I am sorry for my bad English.
I have been reading your project techie-buzz.com via translate.google.com. Now I want to help you. … Yesterday, I learned that you have the plugin, which is a serious error. Plugin – Top Commentators Widget. Error in plugin allows any user to take a place in the list of active commentators. To do this, leave only 1 comment! To this end, the visitor must:
1. leave a comment
2. specify any name that is already in the LIST Top Commentators (eg, Daniel),
3. link to your site
Now the list of Top Commentators, under the name Daniel will be a link on someone else’s site.
Detailed, I described here – http://www.vse-ok.com/2009/03/17/bag-v-plagine-top-commentators-widget-dayot-eshhyo-odnu-lazejku-dlya-optimizatorov
Reply to this comment
Keith Dsouza Reply:
March 18th, 2009 at 11:56 am
@CPU Thanks for the heads up, I will make the changes that fix this bug
Reply to this comment
Abalone Beads
March 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am #
Have to agree with KW. I’d rather stick with google mail than try to spruce up outlook.
Reply to this comment
Lydia from P Cube Services
March 18th, 2009 at 10:45 am #
Installed Xobni yesterday. The network report is not accurate. I emailed myself and did an analysis of me…
I like the facebook and email by the hour reports.
Reply to this comment
Lydia from P Cube Services
March 18th, 2009 at 11:17 am #
Installed and used OuTwit today. The convenience of twitting in Outlook is good, but administration of another subfolder in my inbox plus juice usage outweighs the convenience.
I’ll continue twitting in twitter.
Reply to this comment
Crystal
March 27th, 2009 at 2:29 pm #
This was VERY useful! In a google search for “free outlook add-ins”, this was the best resource- thanks for helping me get organized
Reply to this comment
Alex
April 12th, 2009 at 8:13 am #
Hey
I really like your list. Some of the tools are very cool. But when I want to search my mails in outlook is use neither xobni (it slows down my computer) nor google desktop search (I prefer a tool which searches only my mails, which is more specialized) but lookeen (www.lookeen.com).
It is not for free, but this is the only negative aspect.
Reply to this comment
Pete Kepf
May 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm #
Too bad Live Search Maps doesn’t work anymore. And the link, http://search.live.com/results.aspx?mkt=en-US&q=downloads%20details%20aspx%20FamilyId%207A0BCE98%20EAB4%2040A3%20B7EC%2043C09D6AE8CB%20displaylang%20en&FORM=BMMENO will tell you that this useful add-in is no longer available. I tried “Maps for Outlook” from an Atlanta-based company, installed it, and it worked for a couple of days, then disappeared. I’ve never been a big fan of Outlook anyway- going back to Google. It works.
Reply to this comment
john
May 20th, 2009 at 4:21 am #
Fantástic information. I got used with Xobni after a long battle to make it more accurate. I was not that trustful with first versio of Taglocity, but now is becoming more usable. I like to use de basic Google Search tool when I’m sure of what i want too.
Reply to this comment
Robert
May 20th, 2009 at 4:50 pm #
You should also check out Gist (www.gist.com). It works with Outlook as well as Gmail and any other web-based information source (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) combining your contacts with news about them. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll set an account up for you to try.
Robert
Gist, Inc.
Reply to this comment
Palmetto
June 11th, 2009 at 4:34 pm #
These add-ons look potentially useful, but how do I install them? Looking in Outlook’s Help utility for ‘add-ons’ didn’t yield anything useful.
Thanks for any light on this subject.
Reply to this comment
Keith Dsouza Reply:
June 11th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
@Palmetto Installing the add-ins is fairly simple, follow the steps listed below.
Download the add-in to your PC.
Close Outlook before you install the add-in (most add-ins require this so it is better to close Outlook yourself)
Install the add-in software just like any other regular software, following the instructions
Start Outlook to start using the add-in
Let us know if you have any other questions.
Reply to this comment
Palmetto
June 12th, 2009 at 6:50 am #
Keith, thanks. I just assumed something had to be done manually to tell Outlook the add-in had been installed.
Reply to this comment
Michael Aulia
June 26th, 2009 at 11:10 pm #
I used xobni before. Although it’s interesting and fun, I don’t see a point of using it because it’s slowing down my Outlook startup process
Reply to this comment
Sleep Insomniac
June 30th, 2009 at 3:46 pm #
Useful ad-ons, but we need some extra info about how to install them.
Reply to this comment
Alex Sandoval
August 7th, 2009 at 6:26 am #
I am trying to install Multimap tool for outlook, but i can’t… it tells me that I need another program from Miscrosoft and takes me to a site, then it tells me that theres an error 1316, and nothing happens and can’t resolve the issue… any help? Do you know if Multimaps work well??
Reply to this comment
Keith Dsouza Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
@Alex not sure about this have never used that tool will try and let you know
Reply to this comment
Mājas lapu izstrāde
September 15th, 2009 at 11:16 am #
Lovely, as i have to use Outlook every day and have a lot of work in it, these addins are going to help a lot in my work, thanks for the post!
Reply to this comment
Alex
September 18th, 2009 at 12:55 pm #
Hey Keith — This is a fantastic list! I’ve sent several folks here over the past few months who needed a boost with Outlook. Any chance you’ll update this for 2009?
I’m biased – but there’s LOTS of other cool stuff out there now. We make Baydin, which uses email context to add intelligence to Outlook – automatic search, event detection, etc. Gist is also great – think Xobni’s social features, but with a heavier focus on integration with a bunch of different data sources. ClearContext is also doing some great stuff for managing email overload – deferring an email for a few days then returning it to your Inbox, for example.
Reply to this comment
Sinavlar
September 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm #
thanks for the list,I liked them but esspecially I love”Live Search Maps”
Reply to this comment
NOdaddy.com
September 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am #
xobni is malware.
the “free” version of xobni is adware!
UNACCEPTABLE
Reply to this comment
Franko
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:14 am #
Does Outlook have a facility to synchronize emails between a desktop and a laptop computer? At the moment all incoming mail can be seen on both (because I have the ISP server set to keep it for 10 days), but outgoing mail (new or replies) remain only on the machine used to type the mail.
Reply to this comment