So am I reading this right. This thread asking for this request started in 2015…it’s now almost 2023 and this problem still isn’t solved 
I am at a loss for words.
I would just like to outline how terrible it is to work with this broken outliner. At no point in my life as a 3d artist working in many different types of 3d software have I ever encountered such a klunky messy broken outliner ever. The grouping is absolutely absurd ( I mean you cant click a group of objects in the outliner and move it into a folder as it selects all the objects as if you shift selected them individually) you can’t name a group (Or I certainly can’t find a way to do that). So you end up with a bunch of retardedly named groups of stuff that make it impossible to work correctly and neatly, and the fact that you can’t place them in a folder to organize them defeats the purpose completely!
Everytime I open my project every single folder is expanded and I have to each and every single time go and collapse everything one by one which takes a long time and this isn’t even that big of a level.
Then the most annoying problem of all is if I by mistake click somewhere in the viewport and it selects an object almost everything expands again in the outliner, I can’t just select and object and have the outliner shut up and just keep quite and just highlight the folder the object is in. instead it feels the need to make mess!
I urge you guys to open Maya and learn how a real outliner works so that you may copy it and make life for everyone that has been complaining since 2015 happy. Hell at this point I would even pay to have a working outliner. I am simply too OCD to work with such a messy outliner that is incredibly broken and has pretty much zero preferences to fix it.
Why try be different, if something works just use it, don’t try reinvent the wheel, a triangle for a wheel simply doesn’t work!