February 15, 2022 / Lily Collins

How to Delay Sending an Email in Outlook 365 in 5 Steps?

With Outlook, the widely-used personal information manager software system from Microsoft, you can accomplish a myriad of tasks. It helps you be organized, on time, and buttoned up. If you use Outlook 365, you have control over your emails. Don’t believe us? In this blog, let us walk you through the steps on ‘how to delay sending an email in Outlook 365’.

Microsoft Outlook, available as a part of the Microsoft Office suite, is primarily an email client. It allows its patrons to make the most of its awesome features and functions such as journal logging, note-taking, contact managing, task managing, calendaring, and web browsing.

5 Steps to Follow to Schedule or Delay Sending an Email in Outlook 365

If you don’t want to regret sending an email to ‘ALL’ instead of to a particular recipient (that you wanted to), this ‘how to delay sending an email in Outlook 365’ guide will treat you with all essential steps.

By following the below steps meticulously, you will know the method to delay the delivery of an individual message. The message you sent by clicking the “Send” button will be held in the “Outbox” for a certain period.

1. While composing a message in Outlook, look for the “More options” arrow from the group that says “Tags” in the Ribbon.
2. Click or select the More Options and then select the checkbox “Do not deliver before” (it should be under “Delivery options”).
3. Click the delivery date and time you want. This way you can schedule your email.
4. Click on the “Close” button.
5. After composing your email, you can click on the “Send” button.

It will delay sending the email. The message will stay in the Outbox folder until the delivery time.

“What if I want to send the message before the delivery time? Can I do that?”

Yes, definitely! Later, if you decide to send the message immediately, here’s what you need to do –

• Sign in to your Outlook account and navigate to the “Outbox” folder.
• Click on the message that you want to send and select “More options”. (This can be found from the “Tags” group in the Ribbon).
• Now, click the checkbox “Do not deliver before” (under “Delivery options”).
• Click “Close”.
• Click “Send”.

Easy Steps to Delay the Delivery of All Messages in Outlook 365

Want to delay the delivery of all messages? Great! We have devised the correct steps that would help you to delay the delivery of all messages by up to 120 minutes. Let’s get started –

• Launch Outlook and go to the “File” option.
• Click the option that says “Manage Rules & Alerts”.
• Next, click “New Rule”.
• You will now see the box “Step: Select a template”. Navigate to “Apply rule on messages I send” under the option “Start from a Blank Rule”.
• Click the “Next” button.
• In the list “Step 1: Select condition(s)”, you need to choose the checkboxes for your preferred options.
• Click the “Next” button.
• Select the checkbox “defer delivery by a number of minutes” in the “Step: Select action(s)”.
• In the box “Step 2: Edit the rule description (click an underlined value)”, you can choose the number of minutes that you wish your messages to be held in the Outbox folder. (You can select up to 120 minutes)
• Click “OK” > “Next”.
• Select the checkboxes and click “Next”.
• Type a name for the rule in the box “Step 1: Specify a name for this rule”.
• Select the checkbox “Turn on this rule”.
• Click on the “Finish” option.

That’s it! You have now learned the methods to delay sending emails in Outlook 365.

Click on the “Send” button. The message will be delivered after being held in the Outbox folder for the time that you have specified.