Schedule Sending an Email with Outlook

Who hasn’t heard the adage, ‘Timing is everything.’ This definitely applies to business work and when you want to send an email. As you may have noticed, over the past couple of years Microsoft has been providing new features within Office 365 and Office installs to help you manage your company content when it is convenient for you. For example, Microsoft has provided the Microsoft Office Mobile apps (Intro to Microsoft Office Mobile Applications) and the Microsoft Lens App (How to Scan Documents with the Microsoft Lens App ) to help you with your busy work life. With that being said, we wanted to introduce you to scheduling email messages to be sent at a later time with Outlook.  This allows you the flexibility to write an email but postpone sending it for a more appropriate time. Below are the steps to do this, but keep in mind that Outlook needs to remain open on your computer when the message is scheduled to be sent. We recommend that you make sure your computer does not go to sleep and leave Outlook open and running but simply lock your computer screen (to do this, select the Windows and "L" keys on your keyboard simultaneously). If the computer or Outlook is not running at the scheduled time, the message will be sent the next time your computer can connect to your email server.

1. From the composed message window, locate the Tags group then select the More Options Arrow.  
   
   
   
   
2. In the Properties window, locate the Delivery Options section, select the Do not deliver before check box, then change the delivery date and time you would like to send the message. Once you are done, select close.
   
   
   
   
3. Once you have finished writing your message select Send. Now, you will see the message in the Outbox folder (scroll down the left pane of your Outlook window) until the delivery time you set in step 2.
   
   

What if things change quickly and now you need to send the message out immediately?
Here are the steps you can follow:

1. Within Outlook on your workstation, go to the Outbox folder and open the message.
2. In the message window, go back to the More Options window from step 1.
3. In the Deliver Options section remove the check next to the “Do not deliver before” option. Select close then choose to send to send the email normally (no delay). You can confirm it was sent by going to your Sent folder in the left Outlook pane.