Outllook for Mac: My iMap Puzzle

The other day I read a quite humorous post by Pascal Derrien on Linked-In on his "affair" as he calls it, with Outlook. I was afterwards moved to comment: "I've been using Hotmail since before Microsoft buy out. I've been using Outlook ever since it came bundled with the Office suite. Am really happy they're now one and the same. I also use Apple 's Mail. Agree with you. Where would we be without email?!"

The Outlook for Mac 2011 version, though, has a few quirks. One of which has been on my mind for ever so long. As it is too long to write as a comment in Pascal's post, I decided to make a post of my own -- with screenshots and all -- to illustrate my point.

You will notice from the first screenshot that I am hoping to create iMap sub-folders from within the Mac Outlook client, so that I can squirrel away my email neatly into pigeon-holes. It is not that easy to do. And for me at least, it has been impossible to figure out how to do it!

As always, I did extensive online research into my issue and discovered that I wasn't alone in my quest. Quite a few users had similar -- if not really identical -- needs to mine. Many knowledgeable websites, including Microsoft's own Forum, advocate clicking on the Hotmail Inbox and creating an iMap folder there. But I don't want to create a folder within my Inbox! I want it to be a separate folder, as we can do quite easily in Gmail, for instance, within Apple's Mail client.

Another Forum posting suggested clicking on "Tools > iMap Folders" on the Toolbar in the Outlook for Mac client. In my case, as the screenshot will also show. There is no such 'iMap Folders' option! I even tried going into the Preferences and having a look at the Advanced option there. As you'll note from the second screenshot, only the basic iMap folder options are there.

All of this is just one puzzle to me. I know I can go into the web interface of Outlook and do what I want there. Any folder I create there will probably show up in my Outlook for Mac client. But I don't want to risk spoiling my already-almost-functioning-as-I-want interface. Perhaps somebody out there can guide me?

Meanwhile, I'll continue to follow the saying of the wise man, who once said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"