Scheduling emails offers an easy way to write emails while you have the time and creative energy to do it, while also delaying the actual delivery of the email until it makes sense for you and/or the recipients of the message. The truth is there are a lot of different reasons that you may want to schedule an email for a date and time in the future. However, if you’ve never done it before, you probably have a few questions about how it works.
First and foremost, what is the step-by-step process to schedule an email in Outlook? Can you schedule recurring emails ahead of time in Outlook? How can you review and edit scheduled emails? Finally, is there a way to cancel scheduled Outlook emails before they are sent?
In today’s guide, we’ll answer all of these questions and more. And remember, if you need additional help with Outlook, you can always reach out to the trained IT experts at Geeker. Now let’s get started!
How To Schedule Emails In Outlook
Whether you’re using Outlook 365 or Outlook on the Web, the process for scheduling an email is largely the same:
- Start a new email by clicking on “New Message” or the “+” sign
- Fill in the recipient(s), subject, and body of the email as you usually would
- Click on the drop-down arrow next to the “Send” button
- Choose “Send Later” or “Delay Delivery”
- Select the date and time you want the email to be sent
- Confirm your scheduled email by clicking “Send”
It’s important to note that if you’re using the Outlook app for desktop, the application will need to be running at the date and time the email is scheduled to be sent. If you’re not running the application at the correct time, the email won’t be sent until the next time that you open Outlook. This does not apply if you’re using Outlook on the Web, as the email is held on the server until the delivery time. Therefore, scheduling emails is not very useful in the Outlook Desktop App, as you will still have to actively be using the application at the right time to ensure prompt delivery.
How To Schedule Recurring Emails In Outlook
As of this writing, Outlook does not have a built-in way to schedule recurring emails. Instead, you have to use a workaround by creating a calendar event. To schedule recurring emails in Outlook, you’ll need to use Outlook’s email and calendar functions together. First, you must draft your email and save it as a template to be used later:
- Start a new email by clicking on “New Message” or the “+” sign
- Fill in the recipient(s), subject, and body of the email as you usually would
- Go to Options > More Options > Delay Delivery
- In the pop-up window, check the box next to “Do not deliver before” and choose the date and time that you first want the email to be sent
- Go to File > Save As, and choose “Outlook Template”
- Name your template and save it
- Close the email window without sending the email
Next, you’ll need to follow these steps in your Outlook calendar:
- In Outlook, click on the calendar icon
- Click on “New Appointment” or “New Event”
- Fill in the subject and location of the appointment (it is beneficial to use the same subject line as the email or reference the email in some way)
- Click on the “Recurrence” button
- Choose how often you want the appointment (i.e. email) to recur; you can choose daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly and set specific patterns or ranges as needed
- In the appointment window, click “Add Attachments” and attach the email template you saved earlier
- Save the appointment/event to finalize the recurring email
Once you have followed the steps above, you’ve effectively created a recurring email in Outlook. Keep in mind that you may need to inform the recipient(s) of what you’re doing, as they will see the recurring emails as Outlook event invites. Otherwise, you’ll want to consider using a subject line that makes it very clear why you’re sending the message so that your recipients do not get confused by the event-style format.
How To See Scheduled Emails In Outlook
If you’ve scheduled recurring emails via Outlook’s calendar function, you can view them by going to your calendar and viewing your events or appointments. However, if you’ve scheduled non-recurring emails in Outlook using the traditional method, it’s pretty easy to see any scheduled emails by going to your outbox (typically located under your list of folders).
Since your outbox will show all emails that have yet to be sent, it will also show scheduled emails. You can check scheduled emails by clicking on them and reviewing their contents. Keep in mind that your outbox may contain non-scheduled emails as well, such as emails that have large attachments and are still in the process of being sent.
How To Edit Scheduled Emails In Outlook
Editing a scheduled email in Outlook is pretty straightforward. As previously mentioned, you’ll need to navigate to your outbox to see all of your scheduled emails. Once you find the email you want to edit, simply follow these steps:
- Double-click on the email you want to edit to open it in a new window
- Make changes to the body of the email, recipient list, attachments, and/or subject line as needed
- (Optional) Reschedule the send time by clicking on “Delay Delivery” and changing the time and date as needed.
- Close the window and, when prompted, click “Yes” to save the changes
*Note: A scheduled Outlook email will remain in your outbox until the scheduled date and time. You can continue to make changes to the email up until the time that it is actually delivered.
How To Cancel Scheduled Emails In Outlook
Scheduling an email ahead of time is a great way to avoid making mistakes, particularly with important communications. Since a scheduled email is waiting in your outbox, you have time to make changes or even cancel the email before the delivery time.
Deleting a scheduled email in Outlook is easy. All you need to do is find the email in your outbox, click on it, and then press the “Delete” key. Alternatively, you can right-click on the email and select “Delete” from the menu. If you want to delete a scheduled email permanently, you can navigate to your “Deleted Items” or “Trash” folder and empty the folder. You can also right-click on the email again and select “Delete” to permanently delete it from Outlook.
However, it’s important to note that deleting or canceling a scheduled email may cause you to lose access to the content of the email. If you spent a lot of time drafting a scheduled email, you may want to schedule it as a template. Or, if you simply want to delay the email’s delivery, you can edit the email and choose a later date and time. This way, you can still keep the content of the email and have more time to make changes or delete the email later on.
Need help from dependable Outlook experts? Reach out to Geeker today for on-demand IT and software solutions!