Delay Sending Messages in Outlook 2003 or 2007
Published on 25th May 2010
Ever Wanted to Send an Email When You’re Out?
It may not have occurred to you, but in the last two versions of Outlook you’ve had the ability to write an email now, but delay sending it until a later time.
Like many things with Outlook, whilst this functionality is there, it is difficult to locate and the screens you see are not easy in assisting you in completing this simple process.
“Why Delay Sending a Message?”
Well, there are many good reasons, for example a birthday or other anniversary message. Perhaps you know when you can release time-sensitive information, but you won’t be in the office to do this. Perhaps you want to announce a promotion after it has been given, or send a press release with time-confidential information in it.
Particularly if you have contacts in other time-zones, then delaying sending is a neat trick. You may want to send your email at 3am... but you don’t want have to wake-up to do it!
The Basics Are as Follows
In Outlook 2003 and before the ‘Options …’ button is on the toolbar. For Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 there’s an ‘Options’ tab on the ribbon with a button ‘Delay Delivery’.
Whichever version of Outlook you have, you end up at a little change ‘Options’ dialog box.
Set ‘Do Not deliver for …’ to the date and time you want the message to go. Finish writing your message and click ‘Send’ as usual.
So, How is the Message Sent?
Once you’ve ‘sent’ a delayed message, what happens from there depends on your email account.
If you have a POP/IMAP connection, Outlook holds the delayed message in the Outbox until the date/time for sending. So you will need to keep your Outlook open and running for the time of the message for it to be sent. The good news is that Outlook should remind you if you close and have a message waiting to be sent.
If you’re connected to Exchange Server, the message is copied from the Outlook Outbox to the Exchange Server outbox so even if you close Outlook, the message will be sent.