Sometimes, sending an email or replying to a specific email instantaneously is not a good idea when you have some serious negotiations going on and your seniors cannot be contacted immediately. Or, you have written an angry email in a fit of rage and you know you will regret it after a couple of hours.
These are a few instances where scheduling an email for a future time comes in handy. If you use Outlook, you are in luck. In this blog, we will talk about the steps to delay or schedule an email in the Outlook account.
Complete Steps to Delay or Schedule Email in Outlook Account
You can either schedule the delivery of an individual message or use rules to delay the delivery of all messages by having them held in the Outbox folder for a certain period after you click ‘Send’.
The following steps can be applied in Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and other versions such as Outlook 2007.
Delay or Schedule the Delivery of a Message –
- Launch Outlook and click compose a message option.
- From the “Tags”group in the Ribbon, you need to choose the “More Options” arrow.
- Click the “Do not deliver before” checkbox under “Delivery Options” and click “Send”
The message remains in the “Outbox” folder until the delivery time. In case, you change your mind and wish to send the message, here’s what you should do.
- Go to the “Outbox” folder.
- Click the delayed message to open it and from the “Tags” group in the Ribbon, you need to choose the “More Options” arrow.
- Click the “Do not deliver before” checkbox under “Delivery Options”.
- Click “Close” and “Send”
Delay or Schedule the Delivery of a Message –
Outlook has a great feature that allows you to create a rule that can schedule or delay the delivery of all messages by a couple of hours.
- Open your Outlook and go to the “File” tab.
- From there, you need to select the “Manage Rules & Alerts”.
- Click “New Rule”.
- You need to click the “Apply rule on messages I send” option in the “Step 1: Select a template” box under the “Start from a Blank Rule” option.
- Click “Next”.
- Select the checkboxes for options that you wish to choose (in the “Step 1: Select conditions”).
- Click “Next”.
(Unless you select any checkbox, you will see a confirmation dialog box that appears on your screen. Selecting the option “Yes” applies the rule to all the messages that you send)
- Select the checkbox “defer delivery by a number of minutes” in the “Step 1: Select actions” list.
- Next, you need to select “a number of” (the underlined phrase) in the “Step 2: Edit the rule description (click an underlined value)” box and enter the time that you want the messages to be held before it is sent. Keep note that you can delay the messages up to two hours or 120 minutes.
- Click “OK”.
- Click “Next” and click the checkboxes for any exceptions (in case you want).
- Click the “Next” option and type a name for the rule in the “Step 1: Specify a name for this rule”.
- Click the checkbox “Turn on this rule” and click “Finish”.
As you click the “Send” option, all the messages in the Outbox folder stay for the specific time you have specified or selected.
Got any query or need technical help? Contact Outlook Customer Support immediately!