Being able to see the total inbox message count instead of total unread emails has its advantages. You might not want this in your inbox because who deletes or moves every message. Though, having this setting on certain folders within Outlook can provide advantages.

By default, Outlook will show total unread emails in a folder. They display this in the navigation pane, normally positioned on the left-hand side of your Outlook screen.

Why use total inbox message count?

At my day job, we receive emails from our clients requesting updates on some of the work we have completed. These are minor and not urgent. So we put them into a specific email folder called Report Updates and will tackle them whenever one of us is free. Once actioned, we will move these emails to another folder (You guessed it, Completed Updates).

To help avoid these emails piling up, we have changed this folder to display total emails instead of total unread emails. This setting doesn’t affect any other folder, as we can set each folder separately to display total inbox message count or total unread emails.

These instructions apply to Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007; and Outlook for Microsoft 365.