Xobni Plus

Xobni Plus is a very useful tool that allows you to quickly find people, files and messages in your inbox.

At first glance you may question why you would need to download a tool that does the same thing as Outlook’s own search tool. The answer is that Xobni not only does everything Outlook Search does, but does a hell of a lot more and does it all much, much faster.

Xobni sits on the left hand side of the screen when you are inside Outlook. Simply scroll over an email and the contact details of that person – email, phone number, LinkedIn profile, Facebook and Twitter feeds and even a profile pic, pop up in Xobni.

Below that you’ll find a complete list all your conversations with that contact, a complete list of all exchanged files, that person’s network of contacts, a complete list of all links exchanged via email and a history of calendar appointments.

But one of the most compelling features of Xobni Plus is its ability to search through thousands of files instantly and retrieve emails simply by typing a keyword into the search bar.

For anyone with a busy life this is simply invaluable. Imagine you need an to find an old email from way back – all you can remember about it is that it had something to do with sailing. Type the word ‘sailing’ into the search bar and every email with the mention of the word will appear instantly.

Xobni claims that Xobni Plus will provide you with ten times the searching power of your Outlook search feature – I’ve been playing around with it for a couple of days now and I have been seriously impressed by the speed with which it delivers results.

You also have the option to refine your searches, so that it will only return emails before a certain date or only ones with attachments. It will even search emails on which you’ve only been CC’d.

The social media aspect of Xobni Plus is quite an eye opener. On the one hand it’s really useful to see who’s contacting you, and to check out some facts about them and their company, which you can do either through LinkedIn, Hoover or by hitting the Google bar where their name appears.

The Facebook and Twitter features though are a little bit intimidating. I spend enough time online to know to keep all of my settings private. My colleague who sits opposite me though was less than impressed when I scrolled over her name in my inbox and I suddenly found myself reading Facebook messages from her brother. Job seekers beware.

Xobni Plus is one of those awesome pieces of technology that you don’t know how much you needed it until you start using it. It’s superbly comforting to know that the days of scrolling through page after page of emails on Outlook are a thing of the past. It makes you feel light on your feet, quick witted on your desktop, and gives you that enormous sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing you’ve suddenly become a more organised person without actually putting in any extra effort to get there.