5 Outlook tips and tricks you should know about

Whether you’re an overworked college student or a professional in a corporate ecosystem, chances are that emails are your go-to mode of official communication. And more often than not, the platform for the said emails is Microsoft’s Outlook.

While there is the basic way to use the app to check emails, did you know that Outlook has a few tricks up its sleeve that supercharges the overall user experience? Read on to know these Outlook tips and tricks.

5 Outlook tips and tricks to make your life easier

Here’s a list of five Outlook tips and tricks which will make you life way easier at work.

1. Answer repetitive emails with Quick Parts

2. Reuse frequent messages with email templates

3. Create rules to organise your inbox

4. Highlight important mail chains with conditional formatting

5. Send automatic replies while you’re away

1. Answer repetitive emails with Quick Parts

Say you find yourselves having to send the same email again and again on a recurring basis. To save yourself the time and monotony of the same, try the Quick Parts feature.

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You can access Quick Parts from the ‘Insert’ tab every time one composes a new email or replies to one. To add a new snippet to Quick Parts, simply compose a new email, and highlight the desired text. Next, go to Insert tab, select Quick Parts, and Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.  

2. Reuse frequent messages with email templates

Email templates are similar to Quick Parts in how they save you time and energy by ensuring you needn’t type out frequently sent emails. The advantage it offers over the latter though, is that that one can fill in subject lines and recipients too, in addition to the email body.

To create a template, simply compose a new email and type in your message. You may choose to leave the recipients, and subject lines blank, or fill them up. Following this, click on File and Save As. Save the email as an Outlook Template in the default folder.

To use this template, click on New Items from the Home tab on Outlook. Next, select More Items, and Choose From, and change the Look In field to User Templates in File System. There, you can pick an email template you’ve previously created. 

3. Create rules to organise your inbox

You may have to deal with multitudes of emails at work every day, and it may get difficult to keep track of them all at times. This is where Outlook’s Rules feature comes in. The Rules feature helps one effectively organise their inbox and keep a track of all communication.

Select File, click on Manage Rules & Alerts and click on New Rule. Next, choose what happens when an email you plan to run a rule on arrives in your inbox. You can select from conditions like automatic archive, forward or move to a designated folder. Lastly, tap on the Finish button.

4. Highlight important mail chains with conditional formatting

As previously mentioned, it isn’t an easy job keeping up with emails which endlessly roll into your inbox. Chances are though, a few of these are more important and require immediate attention. How do you keep track of them then? Conditional Formatting is the answer. Conditional formatting helps highlight important emails such that one pays heed to them first.

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To set up Conditional Formatting, open Outlook and click on the View Ribbon tab. From there, click on View Settings. Select Conditional Formatting from the subsequent dialogue box. Click on Add, and type in the name of the formatting rule you want to set up.

In the following pop-up box, select the font, font style and size, along with effects and colours. Following this, click on Condition from the dialogue box, from where one can instruct Outlook to colour the email. Now, click on the From button, and search for and select the contacts from your address book, whom you want these rules to apply to. Following this, click on OK, and you’re good to go.

5. Send automatic replies while you’re away

We understand that as a professional courtesy, it is important to acknowledge emails from clients and colleagues alike. However, when away on vacation or even travelling, one may not want to check their emails, or be able to check them. To help, Outlook has another nifty little trick – automatic out-of-office replies.

To create one is a very simple process. All you have to do is navigate to File at the top, select Info, and click on Automatic Replies. All you have to do now is type in your message, select your start and end time, and you’re done! Yes, it’s that simple!  

Outlook, when used right, is one of the handiest software there is. With these simple tricks, you can elevate your user experience and ensure your work goes on in a smooth, hassle-free manner.