How to redact an email in Outlook

The redaction features of Outlook are limited. It is more convenient to run a parallel email client with remail redaction features and subject data access request management features builtin. If you use Exchange, Gmail or IMAP you can run Hexamail Flow alongside Outlook and connect to the same email server account. This allows you to continue to use Outlook as your main email client and use Hexamail Flow as your email redaction client on the same data

Lets work through an example.

Often the first stage of any Subject Data Access Request email redaction process is to extract all relevant email from a larger database or set of email. Hexamail Flow can connect to any Exchange, Gmail or IMAP account and show you your existing folder. You can then create a new folder for the specific subject data access request on the server or locally. Once created just copy any relevant email to the new folder. To discover relevant email you can use the built in search in Outlook or Flow to find the email, then simply copy and paste or drag them to your subject data access request folder. If you prefer you can manage the email in Outlook and get all those requiring redaction into a folder, then export the folder to PST format. It is then trivial to import that PST into Hexamail by right clicking any folder and choosing Import File.

Export a PST file from Outlook

Select email to export

Select PST file export

Choose a path to export to

In Hexamail you can import the email into a folder, the local account, or into a special "Subject Data Access Request" folder. The Subject Data Access Request folder is a special folder that also contains a single contact record relating to the subject of the request. The subject contact details are used as a "allow list" of terms to not be auto-redacted.

Creating a local folder to import into

Importing an Exchange or Outlook PST file

If you choose to create a Subject Data Access Request folder the subject contact will automatically be created, and the import pop up box will prompt for you to locate the PST file you wish to import. Just skip the import by pressing cancel. Then in Outlook you can update your folder list to see the new folder, and then copy email to it. In flow the folder is already there and you can simply copy the email to the folder

Filling out the subject contact details

Locate the subject contact record window and fill out the contact details for the subject making the Data Access Request. These details will NOT be redacted automatically from the email and attachments that are to comprise the Subject Data Access Request

Save the new Subject Data Access contact record

The next step is to filter the superset of email down into the list of email that need to be provided to the subject as part of the Subject Data Access Request. This can be done in same way as with any email client. You can select multiple email and delete, flag/ sort or hide email. You can pin email to the top of the list while you work. There is also a powerful built-in "Sweep" function to remove all email from specific senders or remove duplicate email chains from within email conversations. Using sweep you can delete all emal that are part of other email threads, and have no unique attachments in a single click.

Redact email content

Once you have the final filtered list of email and attachments you need to redact you can start redacting each email content and any attachments. This process is semi-automated but a quick manual inspection is required to ensure all sensitive material has been correctly redacted.

Open each email by double clicking to open as a new window, or if you prefer to use the preview pane, then click on each email and it will automatically be displayed in the preview pane. Once in the preview pane you can just right click the content and choose "redact" or click the redact button in the toolbar on the right hand side

Redact email content

The automatic redaction will redact all phone numbers, post codes, addresses, email addresses, web links, first and last names from the content. In the redaction page you can still read the text that has been redacted, but don't worry: on printing the content is entirely blanked out. If something should not be redacted click on the redacted text and choose "un redact". if text is still present that needs redacting right click the word (or make a selection) and right click and choose "redact". You can also double click any word to toggle it's redaction. The floating window in the bottom right shows all the words currently redacted or allow listed (never to be redacted for this subject request). The window can be picked up and moved if required.

Once you have completed the redaction process you can click Print to print the redacted content or simply move on to the next email, the redacted content will be automatically stored alongside the original email and shown whenever you reopen the email. If you want to remove the redacted content just click the small close button on the redacted tab at the bottom. Your redactions for this email will be removed.

An email with redacted content is shown with a special redacted icon next to it in the email list so you know which email you still need to process and which have already been redacted

Redacted email shown in list

You can redact the content of any email attachments in the same way. Just click on an email to display it in the preview (or double click to open it in a new window). Select the attachment to redact from the Attachments tab and right click and choose "redact". A HTML version of the PDF/Word/Excel or Powerpoint document is shown and can be redacted in the exact same way as the email content. Redacted versions of attachments are shown as additional redact tab and stored alongside the email for future viewing or printing. Again you can choose to print the redaction right away or simply move on to the next email to carry on redacting content.

Redact email attachments

Once you have redacted all the content required you can select multiple email in the list in the usual way (hold control down when clicking an email to select it as well, or hold shift down to select all email from the previous selection to the newly clicked email). Once selected right-click the selected email and choose "Print Redacted". This will check all email have redacted versions and print those redactions. You can optionally choose to open all the email that are missing redacted version in order to perform the redaction before printing.

Printed redacted content