The colored dots next to names in Outlook are known as priority markers. They indicate the priority of the interaction with people and organizations. Priority markers come in five different colors: blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Blue indicates that an email is unread and unread messages always appear at the top of a list. Green indicates that an email has been replied to but not yet sent and yellow suggests that a message has been forwarded to another person or organization.
Blue dots on emails are a visual representation of the number of unread messages in your inbox.Users can click these dots to quickly jump to their unread messages and read them. Users can also set up filters that automatically send blue dots when new messages arrive for certain types of messages, such as when they receive blog posts or tweets from their favorite people.
The green dot that appears on the right side of an email means that the message has been read. The email is not deleted, only marked as read.
The red circle on Outlook indicates that there is an absence of communication with the sender, which can be for a number of reasons. One reason could be that the sender has added you to their spam block list. Another reason could be that the sender has unsubscribed from your emails or deleted them. The red circle also means that there is an issue with the email address associated with the message, such as it being fake or not valid.
This means the person is no longer active on the network.
In Outlook, the green dot that signifies a new message is also called a visual cue. This visual cue is often seen as a distraction and can be removed by going to the View tab on the Ribbon menu. The Visual Cues section contains three buttons: Message Reading Pane, Include Inferior Items, and Show/Hide Report button. The third one allows you to turn off the green dot as an option if it is too distracting.
A yellow or orange dot on Outlook means that there is a message waiting for you and needs action to be taken. It is likely to be intercepted email with potentially high priority, such as requests from your boss, colleagues, or clients.
The yellow dot in Outlook means that the message is unread.Some people find this feature distracting and they turn off the “show read status” option. This will remove the yellow dot by default, but will not affect how you can tell if a message has been read (i.e., the green arrow won’t be visible).
When a red dot is placed next to an email, it means that the person who sent the email is expecting a written response. They are waiting for their phone call or text message to be returned.
The user can tell if someone is active in Outlook by checking the state of their sessions for a recent activity, or by looking at the notification bar on their desktop. The latter being a quicker and more effective way to find out, as it will list recent emails, appointments, contact updates and other notifications from the program.
