How to delay sending an email

How to delay sending an email

Since most of us realise that we have made a mistake with an email within seconds of sending it, there are advantages to delaying for a minute or two after you have clicked Send.

The Defer Delivery function (only available in Outlook, not in Outlook Web Access) holds every email you send for a short while in your Outbox before sending it. To enable this on Outlook 2016 (if you’re using an earlier version of Outlook the process may be slightly different):

Rules and Alerts

On your Outlook main screen
  1. Click on File (extreme top left)
  2. Click Info (it’s probably already open)
  3. Click on the 'Manage Rules & Alerts' button

New rule

In the window that opens:
  1. Click New Rule
  2. In the 'Rules Wizard' window that opens, for ‘Step 1: Select a template’, click on ‘Apply rule on messages I send’
  3. Click Next

Rule setting

  1. For 'Step 1: Select Condition(s)', click ‘On this computer only’; which is at the bottom of the list
  2. Click Next

Defer

  1. For 'Step 1: Select Action(s)', click on ‘Defer delivery for a number of minutes’
  2. In the same pane, for 'Step 2...' click on the words ‘a number of’
  3. Select the number of minutes that you would like delivery delayed
  4. Click OK
  5. Click Next

Finish

  1. Keep clicking Next until you get to a final pane called ‘Finish rule setup’
  2. Give the new rule a name, something like 'Defer all sent emails'
  3. Check the details.
If you want to change a details, click Back until you get back to the item you want to change
  1. Click on ‘Turn on this rule’
  2. Click Finish.

After setting this rule up, if you realise that you have sent an email in error before the number of minutes you selected is up, click on your Outbox and click the red X against the message that you don’t want to send after all – or drag it back to your Drafts folder to amend and re-send it. Your Outbox will be in your alphabetical email folder list, but you can add it to your Favourites by simply right-clicking on the Outbox and selecting ‘Show in Favourites’.