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Archive for Outlook Email Tips
Thursday,
February
23rd,
2012
Adding attachments to email is no big deal, even beginners would know how to do this (Click on the Attachment button and browsing the file).
But the problem with this method is that there is a possibility you might forget to add the attachment to the email. Why?
Because we send hundreds of emails in a day (not all require an attachment), the most obvious sequences of steps are, open a blank email > enter the email address > subject > content > and then click Send.
If an email needs an attachment, it would likely be the last thing you will add and so there is chances you will miss it. Which means you will again have to send another email with the attachment wasting your time and maybe annoying your clients/customers.
Here is how you can use Drag and Drop to add an attachment to the email first and then enter the other details
- Open Outlook
- Click on the Inbox
- Go to the location where you have saved the file you wish to attach
- Drag and Drop the file in the Inbox.
This will now open a blank email with the attachment added. You can now enter the email address, subject (this will be the same as the name of the attachment but you can always change it), enter the content and click Send. Simple and Safe!
For those who still prefer the traditional method of adding attachment, you can try SendGuard for Outlook. This simple Outlook addin automatically prompts you if it feels that an email is missing an attachment. You can focus on the more important stuff like the email content while this outlook add on runs in the background and protects you when needed.
Did you find this tip useful? Let us know by leaving a comment below
Related Post
Your Personal Email Security Guard in Outlook
Wednesday,
October
12th,
2011
For big parts of my day my Outlook Inbox is where I work. I read many of my emails in the Outlook reading pane (the preview of the email while I am still in my Inbox). I also use the fact that unread emails still need some action from me. The problem is that as I step through emails, they get marked as having been read, even though I may not have actually read them.
Here’s a setting that one of my team member (Thank you Anand) pointed out to me that you can quickly change… now Outlook will only mark an email as read if you’ve spent a minimum time on it.
I’ve set mine to 5 seconds. That way if I am on an email for less than 5 seconds it stays unread. Anything longer than 5 seconds and Outlook assumes that I have read the email. You can use any time setting that fits the way you work.
For Outlook 2010:
- Click on File > Options
- Click on Mail from the left side column
- Click on the Reading Pane button on the right
- On the Reading Pane dailog box, tick the checkbox for “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane“
- Enter a time in the box beside “Wait XX seconds before making item as read”
- Click OK and than OK again
For Outlook 2007/2003:
- Click Tools on the menu > Options…
- Click the Other tab
- Click on the Reading Pane… button
- On the Reading Pane dailog box, tick the checkbox for “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane“
- Enter a time in the box beside “Wait XX seconds before making item as read”
- Click OK and than OK again
I hope that this little tip makes your life in Outlook a little bit easier.
Monday,
October
10th,
2011
Emails are a very dominant means of communication nowadays and it can take up hours of our time just checking, reading or answering emails. So let me ask you again, is your Email killing your Productivity?
If your answer to the above is YES, then below are just some simple email tips that can help you stay focused and more productive.
1. Turn-off any forms of Distractions (Email Alerts)
I have always preferred to turn off e-mail notifications in Outlook, particularly the blue notification rectangle that shows up everytime you receive a new email in Outlook versions 2003 and later.
Imagine this pop-ups appearing every 5 or 10 minutes, or even more often and the end result – your productivity is getting affected (even if you do not open and read the email immediately).
You can refer to an earlier post on how to Turn-off the Email alert in Outlook.
2. Automatically highlight important emails
You might receive hundreds of emails a day but this does not necessarily mean that all have to be dealt with immediately.
You can setup Outlook to automatically highlight or color-code important emails that require your immediate attention. This ensures that you are focusing your attention on the right emails.
3. Try to automate as many processes as possible (rather then doing it manually)
If you are using an email program such as Outlook, you can setup rules to perform some of the obvious tasks such as moving SPAM/JUNK emails out of the Inbox automatically. This saves you time which can be used for other important matters rather deleting individual SPAM emails.
4. Process your emails in batches
It’s not necessary to check emails throughout the day or work on them all day long. As noted above, more often you will find that not all emails require an immediate response. So try to process your emails in batches, you can answer the first lot of emails first thing in the morning and the others sometime in the afternoon.
This reduces frustration (that more often happens due to email overload) with emails and at the same time allows you to focus on other productive tasks through the day.
These are if you like some simple tips to help you stay focus and productive.
Do you have other methods of your own to stay productive?
Please share it with us and our readers by leaving a comment below.
Friday,
September
23rd,
2011
Often the emails that we receive require some future actions for example to setup a meeting with a client or making a phone call on a particular date/time. Ofcourse you can create a new Appointment or a Task to do the same but in this post, I will show you how easy it is to set reminders on the email itself.
In Outlook 2010 (When a message is closed)
- In your Inbox, select a message
- Under the Home tab > go to the Tags group
- Click Follow Up > Add Reminder
- On the Custom dialog box, tick the Reminder checkbox. This activates the Reminder date and time boxes beneath the checkbox.
- Select a date and time for the reminder to appear. Additionally you have the option to select what sound to play when a reminder appears by click on the Sound button.
- Click OK.
The message will now be automatically flagged for follow up and the reminder will appear at the date and time specified.
In Outlook 2010 (When a message is open)
- Under the Message tab > go to the Tags group
- Here on the steps will be the same (as above) as when the message is closed.
In Outlook 2007 (When a message is closed)
- In your Inbox, right-click the message
- Click Follow Up > Add Reminder
- On the Custom dialog box, tick the Reminder checkbox. This activates the Reminder date and time boxes beneath the checkbox.
- Select a date and time for the reminder to appear. Additionally you have the option to select what sound to play when a reminder appears by clicking on the Sound button.
- Click OK.
The message will now be automatically flagged for follow up and the reminder will appear at the date and time specified.
In Outlook 2007 (When a message is open)
- On the open message window, click Follow Up on the Ribbon > Add Reminder
- Here on the steps will be the same (as above) as when the message is closed.
In Outlook 2003 (When a message is closed)
- In your Inbox, right-click the message
- Click Follow Up > Add Reminder…
- On the Flag for Follow Up dailog box, select a Due by date (and optionally a time for the reminder to appear).
- Click OK
The message will now be automatically flagged for follow up and the reminder will appear at the date and time specified.
In Outlook 2003 (When a message is open)
- On the open message window, click Actions on the menu
- Click Follow Up > Add Reminder…
- Here on the steps will be the same (as above) as when the message is closed.
Do you think that this is much easier then setting up new Appointments and Tasks?
Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Tuesday,
September
13th,
2011
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This Special Offer End on the 19th of September
About QuickFile and EmailNotes
QuickFile is an Outlook addon that allows you to quickly and easily organize your mail into folders with a single click. With QuickFile you can:
- Organize mail quicker
- Send & File in one quick step
- File 90% of emails at the click of one button
- Find emails again fast and easy
- Quick and easy to install and use
Click here to see what existing users of QuickFile are saying
EmailNotes is an Outlook addin that allows you to quickly and easily add notes like ‘post-it notes’ to emails: With EmailNotes you can:
- Immediately jot down ideas while reading emails
- Add missing information to emails (usually gathered by follow-up phone calls)
- Improve follow-up on emails (and INCREASE SALES CLOSING RATES)
- Remember why certain emails were put in certain folders
Click here to see what existing users of EmailNotes are saying
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Tuesday,
August
16th,
2011
Searching for emails in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 has become much easier and faster. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of Outlook Search.
1. Use Instant Search
Outlook 2007 and later has a very handy Search box that is easy to use and can search the folder you are in, as well as all other mail folders.
Just type in your Search term and Outlook will automatically show you any matching emails that it finds.
If you think that the email is in a different folder, click the “Try searching again in All Mail Items” hyperlink that is displayed at the bottom of your search results.
You can clear your Search results at any time to see all emails in a folder again by clicking the little x in the Search box.
2. Refine Your Search using the Search Tools ribbon
Did your search return too many results? You can refine it further by using the Search Tools ribbon. (This ribbon only comes up after you start a Search as described above)
For example, I can refine my search results to only show me results that have attachments by clicking on the Has Attachments button on the ribbon.
Or… If I wanted to only see Search Results from this week then I could click on the This Week button on the ribbon.
You can click more than one buttons for more complicated searches (e.g. click Has Attachments and This Week to filter search results for emails from this week that have attachments)
The Search Ribbon has some very powerful options including the option to Search by Sender, Recipient, Categories etc.
Note: As you click buttons on the Search Ribbon, you will find that the Search box gets updated with your search criteria.
3. Instead of using the Search box, use Find from the Home ribbon
I don’t use this much myself but you can also apply quick filters to emails in any folder by using Find from the Home ribbon.
- Click Find (you only need to do this if Filter Email is not displayed)
- Click Filter Email
- Select the appropriate filter that you want to apply (e.g. you could click This Week to see all emails from this week)
The results will be displayed and (again) the Search Ribbon will be displayed that you can use to further refine your search.
4. Search for Folders instead of emails
All the above tips involve searching for emails based on the email contents. Depending on your filing system, you may also want to search for a folder… in order to go over emails in a project etc.
Although this final feature is not built into Outlook (everything else above comes built into Outlook 2007 and later), you may want to use a email filing addin such as QuickFile for Outlook which adds a Find & Goto Folder button to your Outlook.
I hope this post makes it easier for you to search and find your emails.
Tuesday,
August
2nd,
2011
Emails are a very important part of our lifes now, infact alot of us (including me) spend 90% of the time sending, receiving and reading emails every day in Outlook. The good thing about emails is that it gets the work done much faster (compared to visiting the client or customer personally on the other side of the town).
However we sometimes receive more emails then we can digest leading to frustration and we end up making mistakes that might make us look unprofessional. How many of you have ever:
- Sent an email to your full mailing list with embarrassing typo’s
- Sent a not-so polite email to one of your most important clients
- Sent a email to the wrong person
You can easily prevent this mistakes using Outlook’s “Defer” rule. You can setup a rule to delay the delivery of the email for a few minutes after you click Send to give you a chance to relook and correct any mistakes you have made.
Setup the “Defer” rule
In Outlook 2010:
- Click the File tab > Manage Rules & Alerts
- Click New Rule
- Choose Check messages after sending, and then click Next.
- Click the Next button again on the “Which conditions do you want to check” screen. This will display a prompt informing you that this rule will apply to every message you send. Click Yes
- Check the box for “defer delivery by a number of minutes“
- Click on “a number of” and change the defer minutes for example 5 minutes. Click Next
- On this screen, you can add any exceptions in case you want the emails to be sent out immediately without delay. If there are no exceptions click Next
- Enter a Name for the Rule and click Finish
In Outlook 2003/2007:
- On the main menu, click Tools > Rules and Alerts…
- Click the New Rule… button
- On the top of the screen, select “Start from a blank rule“, choose Check messages after sending, and then click Next.
- Click the Next button again on the “Which conditions do you want to check” screen. This will display a prompt informing you that this rule will apply to every message you send. Click Yes
- Check the box for “defer delivery by a number of minutes“
- Click on “a number of” and change the defer minutes for example 5 minutes. Click Next
- On this screen, you can add any exceptions in case you want the emails to be sent out immediately without delay. If there are no exceptions click Next
- Enter a Name for the Rule and click Finish
Now when you send a email, you will notice that it stays in your Outlook for 5 minutes (the time you set in the rule). This gives you a chance to relook the email and correct any mistakes you might find.
Related Posts
How to Avoid Sending Emails to the WRONG person
Common (Costly) Emailing Mistakes in Outlook and How to Prevent Them
Wednesday,
July
20th,
2011
2011 has been a year of discovery for me… a year where I am trying to eliminate as many bad habits as I can. One habit that I know I have (but have been avoiding discovering) is how often I click Send & Receive in Outlook… most times without even knowing that I am doing it.
In this post, I look at why I do it, what’s wrong with it and how I am curing myself.
WHY… FROM WHEN?
At first I didn’t try and stop myself from clicking Send & Receive. Instead I tried to see when I was clicking it. This is what I discovered.
- I was clicking Send & Receive whenever I was in-between major pieces of work during the day. It was a mechanism to avoid starting the new piece of work… particularly if it was something that I did not want to do. I was hoping to discover a distraction in my Inbox… even if the distraction would be a total unproductive waste of time.
- I was clicking Send & receive whenever I had a decision to make. The decision could be deciding what I was going to work on next… or it could be a design decision with no strictly right answer (I hate being wrong). In short, I was again hoping that something would catch my attention so that I could avoid doing what I had to do.
In summary… Send & Receive was a procrastination mechanism. I was hoping that it would give me a distraction (in the form of an email) that would justify me not doing what my business needed me to do.
MY SOLUTION
I now make a conscious effort to CLOSE Outlook several times a day.
Once Outlook is closed, I decide what I want to do and then start work. I do not open Outlook while working on this unless I need to refer to an email.
I still find myself moving the mouse over to try and click Send & Receive… but then I realize Outlook is closed… and then I realize WHY it’s closed… which makes me get back to some real work.
The thing I’ve discovered is that most of the things that I had been hoping to avoid only take a few seconds… I’ve been getting much more work done… and most of it is very enjoyable.
Once I get a decent chunk of work done, I turn Outlook on again for my email-fix.
I’d love to hear comments from users on their own ways of dealing with email-distraction.
Outlook by default saves all its e-mails into one file. Prior to Outlook 2003, there was a limitation of 2 GB to your Outlook data file. Although 2 GB seems like a lot, this space can be filled quickly particularly if you receive a lot of attachments.
Once you reach that limit, there is no real warning. Outlook just slows down, e-mails start getting lost and in some cases Outlook just stops opening altogether. Retrieving your e-mails from this corrupt PST is a nightmare.
In Outlook 2003, you have the option of using the new Unicode format of Outlook data file which can hold much more data. However if you upgraded Outlook from an earlier version then chances are that you are still using the older format with the 2 GB limitation.
Irrespective of whether you are using the new or old format data file, you should split your Outlook data into at least 2 files. Your main PST file should not be used like a filing cabinet for old e-mails. Create a separate PST file to save e-mails that you want to keep for future reference. This leaves your main Outlook data file lean and mean so that Outlook is able to open up quickly. To create a new Outlook data file:
For Outlook 2010:
- Click on Home tab
- Select New Items > More Items > Outlook Data File…
- Outlook suggests a default location for the file. I recommend that you change this to a folder that you backup regularly, possible a sub-folder in your My Documents.
- Enter a filename and click OK to create the file.
For Outlook 2003/2007:
- Click File > New > Outlook Data File
- Outlook 2003 Only: Outlook 2003 uses two types of Outlook data files. If you will be using the data only in Outlook 2003 or later, choose MS Outlook Personal Folders File. Otherwise choose the Outlook 97-2002 option.
- Outlook suggests a default location for the file. I recommend that you change this to a folder that you backup regularly, possible a sub-folder in your My Documents.
- Enter a filename and click OK to create the file.
You can create as many Personal Folder files as you need. Most users only need to create one in addition to the one that Outlook creates by default.
PST 1: Default Folder created by Outlook
PST 2: Use to store Project E-mails
If you have a very high volume of e-mails (particularly with large attachments) you may want to have 2 PST files for your Project E-mails, one for Active projects and one for Completed projects.
How to Move Emails from One PST to another (Using Drag and Drop)
One simple way of moving your emails from one PST to another is to Drag and Down the email to the appropriate folder. This method is simple and it works but:
- It can be time-consuming to find the right folder if you have a lot of folders
- It is easy to accidentally drop the email into the wrong folder
Using QuickFile to move your emails
Our Outlook addin QuickFile has the ability to remember where you commonly file emails related to a project/case/person and it will provide you with a list of recently used folders. You can simply:
- Select the email that you wish to move
- On the QuickFile toolbar/Ribbon, click the QuickFile button. This will display the QuickFile screen.
- You can select the appropriate folder from the recommended list(based on your previous filing)
- Click Move
The email will now be moved to the appropriate folder.
QuickFile is the Fastest, Easiest and Error-Free way to file emails in Outlook. Users tell us that they can file as much as 90% of their emails at the click of one button.
Click here to learn more about QuickFile for Outlook.
Do you have an important message that you need to communicate to all your customers now? Your customers are already saved as contacts in Outlook… so maybe you could just create an email and CC it to all of them. NO!
Using the CC field to send out your sales and marketing emails is not recommended. It can result in annoyed customers and lost sales because:
You are violating your customers’ privacy: When you use CC to send out emails, every person who receives the email will be able to see everyone else’s email address. The problems this can cause are:
- Your customers may not want other people to know that they are working with you.
- Your customers may not want other people on your list to have their email address.
- One of the recipients may decide to use your list for their own marketing efforts.
A good example of this recently happened at our golf club which circulates its weekly newsletter using the CC field. A few of the members have simply copied the list and started advertising all kinds of things… from cars… to computers… to garage sales. I’m not quitting the golf club because it is the only one close to my home but your customers may quit on you.
Your email may never reach your customer: One of the rules that junk email filters use to work out if an email is spam is based on the number of recipients. Stuff too many people in the CC field and suddenly your email ends up in the Junk Email folder where it is never read.
Your email never gets read because it is obvious to the customer that this is a bulk mail out: Even if the email gets to your customer, it looks like a marketing email. He thinks you’re just trying to sell him something so he either deletes it… or leaves it in his Inbox to read later (how many of those emails do we ever read later?).
… can you use the BCC field instead!
The BCC field is no better at customer communications. Because the email is not addressed to the customer, the junk filters either move it to the junk folder… or the user recognizes it as marketing and deletes or ignores it till too late.
So what can you do?
If you’re one of the tens of thousands of users of the Email Merge for Outlook addin, you already know. Email Merge takes your chosen list of people (from Outlook or Excel or wherever) and:
- Creates a separate email for each person… with only their email address in the To field.
- Personalises the Subject and/or body of the email with their personal details (name, company name etc) if you want.
- Sends the email out immediately or schedules it out at a time suitable to you.
- It does all this and more inside Outlook using a Wizard that steps you through the process in a few minutes.
If you haven’t tried Email Merge yet, click here to learn more and download a fully functional version of the Email Merge for Outlook addon.
You’ll be sending out your first set of sales and marketing emails within 5 minutes.
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