Activating Outlook Setting to Delay Sending Emails

Please find below instructions for how to activate a setting on Office 365s ‘online’ Outlook and the ‘off-line’ versions of Outlook currently supported (2010 and 2016).

Outlook 2010 / 2016 (off-line):

  • Click ‘File’
  • Click ‘Manage Rules & Alerts’
  • Click ‘New Rule’
  • In the ‘Step 1: Select a template’ box, under Start from a Blank Rule, click ‘Apply rule on messages I send’ and then click ‘Next’
  • Click ‘Next’ again
  • A confirmation dialogue box appears. If you click ‘Yes’, the rule that you are creating is applied to all messages that you send
  • In the ‘Step 1: Selection action(s) list, select the ‘defer delivery by a number of minutes’ check box
  • In the ‘Step 2: Edit the rule description (click an underlined value) box, click the underlined phrase a ‘number of’ and enter the number of minutes for which you want the message to be held before it is sent
  • Click ‘OK’ and then click ‘Next’
  • Select the check boxes for any exemptions that you want
  • Click ‘Next’
  • In the ‘Step 1: Specify a name for this rule’ box, type a name for the rule
  • Select the ‘Turn on this rule’ check box
  • Click ‘Finish’
  • Now every time you send an email you will see it in you ‘Outbox’. To stop sending it, go into you Outbox and click on the email

Office 365:

  • In Office 365’s Outlook, click on Settings (found in the top right of the screen – the icon shaped like a cog)
  • In the search bar, type ‘undo send’
  • Click on the first search result, which will be ‘Undo Send’
  • Click in the box marked ‘Let me cancel messages I’ve sent for:
  • Choose 30 seconds from the drop down options
  • Click ‘Save’
  • Close ‘Options’
  • Test the function now works by sending yourself an email
  • Having pressed ‘Send’, you will see a box in the top right of the screen will appear, showing a progress bar
  • If you click ‘Cancel Send’, the email will no longer leave your sent items