Microsoft releases Clutter, an automatic email filter for Office 365 business users

Microsoft today unveiled a new tool to help Office 365 people manage their inboxes, and they’re calling it Clutter.

Clutter is basically a smart email filter that helps sort out your emails based on what’s most important to you. It takes advantage of Office Graph’s machine learning to decide which emails aren’t a priority, and automatically sort them into a fittingly named ‘Clutter’ folder.

Clutter is disabled by default, but users can enable it from the Outlook Web App menu. Once enabled, users will see the new folder appear and it will start filtering out the emails that aren’t essential to you once it’s gathered enough information about your habits. It needs be enabled from the desktop, but the feature will work on any of your devices.

The tool decides which email you’re likely to ignore based on your previous actions – Microsoft says the tool gets better the longer you use it, and it will adapt to changes in usage patterns according to what you may be working on at a given time.

Alternatively, you can also train Clutter yourself by simply tagging emails or dragging them into the Clutter folder.

The new tool begins rolling out to Outlook users today, starting with English-language business users who’ve opted into Microsoft’s First Release program. Standard release business customers will see their updates rolling out later this month.

There’s no word on when the update will roll out to non-business office users, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen soon, particularly given Google’s recent attempt at cleaning up your inbox.

➤ De-clutter your inbox in Office 365 [Office Blogs]