How To Schedule An Email In Outlook?

As our lives get extremely hectic, time management has become more important than ever. Emails play a vital role in professional communication. However, juggling a busy schedule can make it tough to hit send on emails at the perfect moment. That’s where Outlook’s email scheduling comes in as a lifesaver. You can compose emails in advance and pick the ideal delivery time. And that’s it your messages land in inboxes when they’ll have the most impact.

Before learning the scheduling process, let’s understand its advantages.

Why Schedule Emails In Outlook?

Email scheduling is an effective way to handle many time zones. If you deal with colleagues or clients in different regions of the world, scheduling emails helps guarantee that your communications are sent at the proper times, regardless of time zones. Scheduling makes it easier to plan your conversation ahead of time, saving you time and effort. Instead of having to remember to send an email at a specified time, you can just schedule it and let Outlook do the rest. Moreover, scheduling emails can help you improve message delivery. Sending emails during peak hours or when recipients are most inclined to engage increases the chances of receiving a timely response.

Now that you know the usefulness of email scheduling, let’s look at the scheduling process.

How To Schedule An Email In Outlook (For Outlook 2013 And Later)

Step 1: Compose Your Email: Log into your Outlook account and click on the ‘New Email’ button. Write your email like you usually do, adding recipient (s), subject line, and email body.

Step 2: Access Schedule Send: Once you’ve written your email, you need to access the ‘Schedule Send’ feature to schedule your email to be sent at a later time.

Look next to the ‘Send’ button in the ribbon. You’ll see a dropdown arrow. Click on the dropdown and choose Schedule Send.

Step 3: Set delivery Time And Date: Upon clicking ‘Schedule Send’, you will see a popup window on your screen.

Outlook might suggest some default times like ‘This Evening’ or ‘Tomorrow Morning’. You can choose one of those or select ‘Custom’ to set a specific date and time.

Step 4: Send The Email: Once you’ve chosen your delivery time and date, close the popup window. And click the ‘Send’ button.

The email will be saved in your Drafts folder and will be sent automatically based on the set date and time.

How To Schedule An Email In Outlook ( (For All Outlook Versions)

Step 1: Compose Your email: Similar to before, write your email with all the recipient(s) and message details.

Step 2: Access Delay Delivery: There are two ways to get to this option depending on your Outlook version:

• For Outlook With The Ribbon: Hit the ‘Options’ tab in the ribbon. Then, find the ‘More Options’ button and click on it. From the dropdown menu, choose ‘Delay Delivery.’

 

• For Outlook with Simplified Ribbon: Click the three dots (…) to expand the menu and select ‘Delay Delivery.’

Step 3: Set Delivery Date And Time: You will find a window titled ‘Delivery Options.’ Make sure the ‘Do not deliver before’ checkbox is selected. Then, choose your desired date and time for delivery.

Step 4: Send The Email: Click ‘Close’ on the ‘Delivery Options’ window and then click ‘Send’ for your email. The email will be saved in your Drafts folder and will be sent automatically based on the set date and time.

Alternative Methods For Scheduling Emails In Outlook

Outlook has robust built-in email scheduling features, but there are other scheduling options as well. These methods may be suitable for specific needs or personal preferences. Here are some options to consider:

1. Email Automation Tools: Third-party email automation tools like Mailchimp or HubSpot can integrate with Outlook to provide advanced email scheduling features. These tools often offer additional features like email marketing campaigns and analytics.

2. Microsoft Flow: It is a cloud-based application that lets you automate workflows including email scheduling. Flow allows you to create custom email scheduling procedures that are suited to your specific requirements.

3. VBA Macros: Advanced users who are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can automate email scheduling activities in Outlook by using custom macros. This method necessitates programming skills but offers great flexibility.

Customizing Your scheduled Emails In Outlook

Although Outlook’s default scheduling choices are sufficient for most users,  you may wish to customize your scheduled emails. Outlook offers several customization options for a better email scheduling experience.

Consider these customizing features:

• You can set the priority of your scheduled emails to draw recipients’ attention. Choose high, normal, or low priority based on the urgency and significance of your message.
• Mark sensitive emails as ‘Personal’ or ‘Private’ to restrict access to authorized recipients.
• If you wish to receive confirmation when recipients open your scheduled email, you can enable the read receipt feature. This can be particularly useful for tracking important communications or time-sensitive requests.

Tips And Best Practices For Effective Email Scheduling In Outlook

Scheduling emails in Outlook is a powerful feature, but it’s essential to utilize it effectively to maximize its benefits. Take benefit from email scheduling with these tips and best practices:

1) When scheduling emails for recipients in different time zones, account for the discrepancy. Send emails during the recipient’s working hours to increase the chances of prompt responses.

2) Send follow-up messages at appropriate intervals. This can help you maintain communication momentum and ensure that important tasks or requests are not forgotten.

3) Before scheduling, verify email recipients, subject lines, and attachments. It’s crucial to ensure that everything is accurate to avoid any potential errors or miscommunications.

Outlook Advanced Features

Outlook has advanced timed and delayed email scheduling options along with basic email scheduling. These features can be particularly useful in specific scenarios where precise timing is crucial. Here are some advanced email scheduling options in Outlook:

• Timed emails: Outlook allows you to send emails at particular times of day, precisely to the minute. This can be useful for making time-sensitive notifications or reminders.
• Delayed delivery: With delayed delivery, you can set a specific time delay for your email to be sent. This feature is useful when you want to ensure that your message arrives after a certain timeframe, such as to coincide with an event or meeting.

Outlook Add-ins

You can explore the Outlook add-ins designed specifically to enhance the email scheduling functionality. Add-ins provide additional features and functionalities that extend the native capabilities of Outlook. Here are a few popular add-ins for better email scheduling:

• Boomerang: Boomerang allows you to schedule emails to be sent at specific times, set reminders for follow-up emails, and even pause your inbox to avoid distractions.
• Right Inbox: Right Inbox offers email scheduling, email tracking, and email reminders within Outlook. It also provides templates and sequences to streamline your communication workflows.
• SendLater: SendLater lets you schedule emails in Outlook and set up recurring emails for repetitive tasks. It also offers email templates and reminders to further optimize your email management.

Integrating these add-ins into your Outlook workflow will let you can unlock additional features and boost your productivity.

Troubleshooting Common Issues While Email Scheduling In Outlook

Outlook’s email scheduling is reliable, but there are a few common problems that you could run into. Here are a few troubleshooting ways to address these issues:

• A reliable internet connection is required to schedule emails in Outlook. If you are having connectivity problems, fix them before scheduling.
• If a scheduled email fails to send, check the scheduled time to confirm it corresponds to your intended sending time.
• If a scheduled email becomes trapped in your outbox, consider deleting the folder and reschedule it.

If these troubleshooting procedures do not address your difficulties, please contact Outlook support or your IT department for more assistance.

Schedule An Email In Outlook – FAQs

Conclusion

Mastering the art of email scheduling in Outlook can significantly enhance your productivity and efficiency. With practice and expertise, you will become an expert email planner, making use of Outlook’s strong capabilities to manage your communication process. So, start mastering email scheduling in Outlook today and reap the benefits of efficient and timely communication.