Have you ever clicked send on an email and then had that sinking feeling because there was something in that email that you wished you’d taken that extra second to proof-read?
Last year we published a tip on how to delay the delivery of a single instance of an email in Outlook. There is also a way to set your Outlook program to do that with all your outbound emails so that this won’t happen to you again. Here’s how:
- In Outlook, click the ‘File’ tab (top left)
- Click ‘Manage Rules and Alerts’
- Click New Rule
- Look for ‘Start from a blank rule’ and click ‘Apply rule on messages I send,’ then click ‘Next’
- Check the box ‘on this computer only’ and then click ‘Next’
- Check the box ‘defer delivery by a number of minutes’ and then click on the link below it in Step 2. A box will pop-up that allows you to choose how long you want to delay it. After selecting your preferred delay time, click ‘Next’ and then ‘Ok’
For every email you now send out of Outlook, it will be delayed by the number of minutes you have selected. Each email will sit in your ‘Outbox’ folder and won’t go out until the allotted time has elapsed, giving you an additional opportunity to make changes to it or even change your mind before it really goes out.
This rule only works when you are working out of the Outlook program on the computer that you set the rule on. It will not apply to webmail, sending from your smartphone or any other computer you may access your email on (unless of course you choose to set up the exact same rule on that computer’s installation of Outlook).