Sometimes you may have too many people to contact and not enough time. It’s these kinds of days that benefit the most from automated technology. You can write an email and have Outlook send it out a week later.
Here’s a guide on how to schedule an email in Outlook. It doesn’t take more than a few steps. Write the message, pick the date, and let the software do the rest. If you want to change something before the email leaves, you can do that just as easily. Let’s go into a bit more detail.
1. Create a New Email on Outlook
Launch Outlook and click on the New Email button. Write your message as normal, add recipients, and anything else you want. What’s on the email doesn’t affect Outlook’s delay delivery.
Alternatively, you can compose the email after you’ve scheduled it. Which way round you do it, is entirely up to you, but do put some effort into plotting your moves, whether for personal or professional use.
Going as far as laying out a five-year goal plan and tools to support it, like OneNote and Trello, is worth the rewards in the end. And your emails are a good place to start.
2. Schedule and Manage Your Email
When you’re ready for the next step, go to the Options tab and click on the Delay Delivery button. As suggested above, this is active and available whether your email contains anything or not.
The button opens a window with lots of fun options. If all you care about is how to schedule an email in Outlook, go straight to the Delivery Options section.
Tick the box next to the Do not deliver before command and then set the date and time. Finally, click Close and Outlook will save your settings.
Other Delivery and Management Tools
Extra options on the Delay Delivery window can make your automated emails even more efficient.
You can set an expiry date, so the system knows not to bother with an email after a project’s deadline passes, for example.
If you work within a team and everyone’s emails are on Outlook, you can have the replies to your email go to someone specific.
Other management settings include being able to ask for delivery and read receipts. You can even mark an email as sensitive and encrypt it to keep the interaction secure.
Outlook’s ability to schedule emails is one of its many hidden and handy features to discover. They can help you make the most of Microsoft’s software and boost productivity.
3. Send Your Email
With everything in place, click Send and Outlook schedules the email. To be precise, it goes into your account’s Outbox folder, which you can access from the sidebar.
The folder holds all your timed interactions, arranged by date, importance, subject, and more. But you can also filter through them for unread, flagged, and mentioned emails.
To make changes, just go into the email again and adjust what you want. Once dispatched, you’ll find interactions in the Sent Items folder.
Best Practices to Schedule an Email in Outlook
There are a few factors that can affect how the system performs. First of all, you can’t send an automated email on Outlook without internet, so make sure your connection is good and working when you need it.
Secondly, up-to-date software is best. Apart from missing new features, an old version of Outlook can bring up problems when connecting with the internet or syncing data, for example. Such disruptions make your job harder.
Be aware of common technical issues too. One that comes up often is about emails getting stuck until you manually select Send/Receive.
This typically happens if the Send immediately when connected option isn’t ticked in Outlook’s advanced settings. Microsoft explains the cause and solution further.
Finally, be careful with your scheduling. For one, check that your computer’s date and time are correct. Also, consider factors like time difference, holidays, and how to phrase the delayed email, especially if you schedule it for next month.
Fine-Tune Your Emailing System
It’s important to build yourself a practical and comfortable workflow. Automation takes a lot of weight off your shoulder. At the same time, it helps expand your vision and business plan beyond the present and how much you can get done.
How to schedule an email in Outlook is the least modern solution can teach. Save precious seconds with smart software that helps with anything, from writing emails quickly to allocating tasks to the right people. Don’t be afraid to explore your options.