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.
Author: Keith Dsouza
I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.Keith Dsouza has written 4369 articles for us.
The author of this post can be contacted at keith@techie-buzz.comComment Using Facebook
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Great List Keith,
I have not used all in the list, tried out Xobni, its wonderful.
Yep, great list. I’ve recently installed OutlookTabs – came across it on Slipstick. It basically adds tabs to Outlook which is pretty cool – espec as the tab shortcuts are the same as Chrome’s :)
Great list…having been using most of them except for the social networking ones…
Great article.
Here is a similar article that mentions great Outlook plug-ins. It has a few that are not mentioned here.
Thanks, I checked it out and found quite a few other interesting add-ins :)
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
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?
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
Great list!!!
Was helpful…
Great post brother..Thanks.
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
good article, thanks for the tips
It’s quite a useful list man. I am very addicted to outlook. This will surely help me. Thanks
Cool article
Thanks for the list.I have been using Outlook, but I need to take advantage of the other stuff as well.
Good List – I personally use the Google Calendar Sync
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
Wow.. gr8 collection.. of outlook addins.. really cool. Thanks for sharing!
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
cool, i like it
Some cracking finds there, just a shame my works policy will not let me even install a screensaver, let alone outlook plugins.
Cool post. But you have missed several other plugins.
Remembered to get back to this post from home and installed Easy To Add. Nice littel app, thanks.
t’s quite a useful list man. I am very addicted to outlook. This will surely help me. Thanks :)
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
Great list there keith . . .
i need plugins to synchronize my contact between Outlook and my windows mobile’s PDA. any suggestion?
thanks for you post, really brilliant