Microsoft updates Outlook.com with Advanced Rules

Microsoft has updated Outlook.com - its browser-based web email service.

According to Mike Schackwitz, principal director of program management of Outlook.com on the official Microsoft blog, the average person has 184 emails in their inbox, and receives 28 emails each day, making it quite a job to keep those emails managed.

Microsoft has introduced a number of new tools to make it easier to keep your inbox in check and build on its commitment "to give your inbox new and better ways to do the heavy lifting and help you save time."

Advanced Rules help you organise individual emails using multi-condition and multi-action rules and combine them together to make them personal to you. For example, you can create a rule to file an email older than a week old from a specific contact into an archive, or if you haven't opened an email from one of your Outlook contacts after three days, you can choose to flag it.

Microsoft has also implemented an undo shortcut, so if you accidentally delete an email or lose it among your folders, you can just click on undo or tap the Ctrl+Z buttons on your keyboard to take a step back and undo your last action.

Microsoft is bringing Outlook.com up to date with Gmail by adding inline reply. Instead of clicking on reply (apparently, eight million people hit the reply button a day in Outlook.com), you can just click in the box above the original email and start typing your reply. It also allows you to keep track of your conversations easily, with each thread in one place.

Finally, Microsoft has made it easier to chat with your contacts in real time, using any of the supported chatting platforms, including Skype, Facebook or Messenger. You can switch between conversations using the different services in the bottom left of the screen and switch between chat sessions.

This new addition also allows you to filter your contacts by chat service and see who's online.

Microsoft says the new features will be rolling out to customers in the next few weeks.