Windows Live Mail 2011: How to Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

By adding all commands that you frequently use, you can rely completely on the Quick Access Toolbar and keep the Ribbon completely minimized without having to use it much at all. This allows you to recapture the large amount of real estate that the Ribbon occupies.

1. Open Windows Live Mail.

2. You will find the Quick Access Toolbar at the very top of the application. You can keep it there or move it beneath the Ribbon by clicking the dropdown arrow at the end of the Quick Access Toolbar and selecting Show below the Ribbon. While you will see an option to Minimize the Ribbon, don’t select it just yet, the Ribbon is still needed to complete the customization of the Quick Access Toolbar.

3. The Quick Access Toolbar gives you a list of commands that you can easily add by clicking the dropdown arrow and selecting the command, these include New, Save as File, Delete, Reply, Print, Previous, Next, and Update all.

4. Since it is doubtful that such a small list of commands can replace the Ribbon, you can add any command that is on the Ribbon to the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking the command on the Ribbon and selecting Add to Quick Access Toolbar. Repeat this action for every Ribbon command that you wish to have access to.

5. Once you have finished adding all of your commands, go back to the dropdown menu for the Quick Access Toolbar and select Minimize the Ribbon since you really don’t need it anymore and you can regain the space that it took up for displaying more of your email stuff.

 

About Rob Rogers

Once a prolific author here on Tech-Recipes, Rob has moved on to greener pastures.
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27 Responses to “Windows Live Mail 2011: How to Customize the Quick Access Toolbar”

  1. October 06, 2010 at 7:25 pm, Oracle77 said:

    Cool! Now I can quit using that stupid Ribbon!! It takes up way too much space.

    Reply

  2. October 21, 2010 at 11:04 pm, Buteonidae said:

    How do we move the buttons on the quick access toolbar? For instance, I prefer my send-receive button to be at the far left.

    Reply

    • November 01, 2010 at 4:40 am, Anon said:

      Just click on the “Customize Quick Access Toolbar” arrow and unclick all the choices, then re-click what you want in the order you want them.

      Reply

  3. November 04, 2010 at 12:36 am, Rosie said:

    Can you customise the ribbon. i.e. I want the print button on the ribbon.

    Reply

  4. November 08, 2010 at 5:40 pm, NewUser said:

    Is there an “undo” button? which can undo the move to folder, copy to folder, delete, … etc?

    Reply

  5. November 09, 2010 at 11:42 pm, Steve said:

    One of the basic toolbars missing is text styles, text size, bold, italic, underline etc. Microsoft are complete idiots…Why in hells name they didnt just build a spam filter into outlook express and release that beggars belief.
    Windows Mail was ok but these Live Mail and Live Mail 2011 are a disaster to use. Horrible, they have made a simple and reliable email client ie Outlook express into an unuseable and longwinded bloatware ridden monster

    Reply

  6. November 15, 2010 at 12:34 am, peedoff said:

    I agree its not a good as the old live mail, sometimes the newer the version the wirse it is.

    Reply

  7. November 15, 2010 at 6:13 am, Mlishman said:

    I’m completely unable to reply to emails that are in my inbox since upgrading, can anyone help me with this? I can send emails…but have to start a new email instead of just replying..

    Reply

    • November 15, 2010 at 6:53 am, Anonymous said:

      Can i know your previous version? Live mail 2010?

      Reply

      • November 15, 2010 at 10:57 am, Mlishman said:

        Yeah I had Live mail 2010

        Reply

        • November 15, 2010 at 11:29 am, Anonymous said:

          ok… cool
          I switched back to 2010 version and then re-upgrade to 2011 (all
          settings were cleared) but found no issue :-(
          Does it give you an error message?

          Reply

          • November 15, 2010 at 9:31 pm, Mlishman said:

            Maybe I’ll just do that! No, no error message. It just doesn’t give me the option to reply..

          • November 15, 2010 at 9:45 pm, Anonymous said:

            no. it won’t help in your situation.
            why don’t you just uninstall it and then re-install with the full
            setup file? maybe that will solve the problem. :)

          • November 15, 2010 at 10:28 pm, Mlishman said:

            All fixed! Thanks for yur help =]

          • November 15, 2010 at 11:02 pm, Anonymous said:

            You’re welcome ;) Glad i could help :D

  8. March 25, 2011 at 11:42 am, Florixxc said:

    how can i make the “Quick Access Toolbar” icons bigger???

    Reply

  9. April 08, 2011 at 8:24 pm, Cgalati said:

    This 2011 is terrible. Where is my file edit view favorites tools help. I have worked with that forever and it works fine.

    Reply

  10. April 15, 2011 at 2:29 am, guest said:

    Cannot add the “reply all” button to the quick access toolbar.
    Windows live mail 2011 is terribly inefficient.

    Reply

    • May 22, 2011 at 4:57 pm, C133ac said:

      All you have to do is open the ribbon, right click on Reply All, and click on Add to Quick Access Toolbar. 

      Reply

  11. April 18, 2011 at 5:18 pm, Jeannie Uphold said:

    Is there any why to get rid of some of the buttons , like all the action buttons, and stuff like that.. I dont like all those buttons on there.. can someone please help me.. and another thing, I wanted to go back to the older version, because I dont like this one, does anyone know where I can find that? thanks

    Reply

  12. May 07, 2011 at 11:14 pm, Jeff said:

    How can I save the font & color when composing email?

    Reply

  13. September 12, 2011 at 10:10 am, SoWErA said:

    god I just wanted to customize the ribbon toolbar not use the f’ing Quick access toolbar

    Reply

  14. September 29, 2011 at 5:54 pm, Charlene S. said:

    I have Windows 7, and I’m trying to find the Tools button. My end goal is to set a sound to incoming emails… Thanks for any advice. (My screen doesn’t have that yellow little tab like the top shot…

    Reply

  15. December 13, 2011 at 10:50 am, harry said:

    Answered all my questions , Thanks …I still don’t like it but ” What the ### “

    Reply

  16. January 20, 2012 at 1:52 pm, Karen said:

    I have Vista Windows Mail. This is a simple question, but when I get to the “Move Items to Selected Folder” the usual click and drag actions don’t work. Any ideas?

    Reply

  17. February 15, 2012 at 10:41 pm, Stuart said:

    Why can’t I size the ribbon bar..the icons are so small I can’t even see them!!!Not sure why you had to try fix something that was not broken??

    Reply

  18. February 26, 2012 at 10:53 pm, Sue said:

    Thank you now I have my ribbon back

    Reply

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