Outlook’s Conversation view–what’s the point?

Q. Why should I bother with Conversation view in Outlook? I don’t like it.

A. Many people don’t like Conversation view because, by default, it only shows you the latest message. Even when you expand it, you only see some of the messages. That happens when there’s a split thread (some people reply to one message, others to another).

The biggest benefit to Conversation view is the ability to clean up a conversation (Home tab, Delete group, Clean Up button). This gets rid of all redundant messages in the thread. You can switch to the Conversation view just to do that. Then, just switch back to whatever view you like.