How to Schedule an Email in Outlook

Email is quite often used to remind yourself or someone else of a task that needs to be done. Now we can of course use Microsoft To Do, or your calendar. But a quick email with a couple of notes in it is often a lot easier. Only it would be great if we could schedule the email in Outlook.

Another advantage of scheduling emails in Outlook is that it also allows you to send the email when the recipient is actually working. This increases the chance they read and follows up on the email. And scheduling allows you to prepare work.

In this article, we are going to take a look at how to schedule an email in Outlook and Outlook Online using the Delay Delivery feature.

Schedule an Email in Outlook

Scheduling an email in Outlook is pretty easy. It allows you to specify the date and time when you want the email to be delivered to the recipient(s).

Important Note

To send an schedule email Outlook will have to be open at the scheduled date/time. You will see that the schedule option is called Do not send before. This explains exactly what this feature does, it won’t send before the scheduled date time. It can however send the email a day later if you haven’t opened Outlook at all on the scheduled date.

Keeping track of Scheduled Emails

Emails that you have scheduled to send later will stay in your outbox. This is great, but can also be confusing. The problem is that you won’t see any indication that you have delayed the delivery of the message. But we can change that by adding a column to the outbox folder:

1. Open your Outbox folder in Outlook
2. Right-click the bar with the column names
3. Choose Fied Chooser

4. Select Date/Time Fields
5. Drag Defer Until to the column bar

You will now see the date and time of the scheduled email in the Outbox folder. This way you always check when the email will be sent.

Change the Delivery date/time

After you have scheduled an email Outlook you can change the date and time of the delivery. It’s also possible to remove the schedule completely from the message. You can do this by opening the sent email in your Outbox folder.

Navigate back to the Delay Delivery screen (Options > Delay Delivery) and change the date and time. If you want to remove the schedule completely then simply disable the Do not deliver before option by removing the checkbox.

Click on Send to save the change and/or send the email immediately.

Schedule an Email in Outlook Online

We can also schedule an email in Outlook Online. The advantage of using Outlook Online for scheduling emails is that it will actually send the email at the scheduled date/time whether you have Outlook Online open or not.

To schedule an email, first, compose your email like your normally would. Make sure that you add the recipients in the email.

1. Click on the drop-down error next to the send button
2. Choose Scheduled Send

3. Choose either one of the suggested moments or click on Custom Time
4. When done click on Send

You will find the scheduled email in your draft folder. Compared to the normal Outlook app, you will find a clear notification that you have scheduled the email with the date and time it’s scheduled to send. If you want to change the date/time or send the message immediately, then click on the pencil to edit the message or use the Send Now option.

Wrapping Up

Scheduling emails in Outlook or Outlook Online is pretty straightforward. Good to keep in mind is that Outlook will need to be open to actually send the email at the specified date. You don’t have that problem with Outlook Online. At the moment of writing, we can’t schedule emails in the Outlook mobile app.

I hope this article helped you with scheduling the emails, if you have any questions just drop a comment below.