Analyst Toolbox

Automatically Delay Sending Bulletins with Outlook Rules

Product: Microsoft Outlook

Ever send out an email (or specifically, a bulletin) to the entire department, only to discover that you forgot a key piece of information? using the Rules feature of Outlook, you can mitigate this issue.

Go to Tools - Rules. Set up a new, blank rule with the following choices:

Apply this rule after I send the message

with _______ in the subject

and which has an attachment

defer delivery by ___ minutes




So your completed rule might look something like this:



Apply this rule after I send the message

with CAU BULLETIN in the subject

and which has an attachment

defer delivery by 5 minutes


You can choose other options (if you do not always some consistent text in the subject, or if you do not send bulletins via attachment), but the important setting is the last one. If you defer delivery by 5 minutes, the email will sit in your outbox until the time has passed, then it will be delivered. this gives you some time to catch potential mistakes and correct them before the email goes out.

This approach is not readily apparent because the Outlook rule specifies that it will be applied, "after I send the message". To most users, this means once it has been delivered, but they are actually two different actions. Using this approach, you can add a delay between "send" and "delivery". Bulletins are the most obvious use, but you can apply this (and other) rules to an infinite set of circumstances!

Author: Jim Mallard
Updated 10/20/2009

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