Top Tip: Delay Your Mail

[dunxd]

Bugs in Outlook (and you yourself) can cause messages to be sent
unfinished, without attachments, or with tone and content you regret
immediate

Tools > Rules and Alerts
New Rule
Start from a blank rule.
Check messages after sending. Next
Don't select anything (apply to all messages) Next (accept the prompt)
Defer delivery to a number of minutes. 1 min is the minimum - should
be enough to catch the accidental sends and the ones you immediately
regret Next
Don't add any expections. Next
Name the rule something like "Delay send for 1 minute". Tick turn on
rule.
Finish.

Relax for a minute after sending any message - even urgent ones.
Remember - you used to have to wait for a courier even for the most
urgent messages

D

 

[Vanguard]

in message

Bugs in Outlook (and you yourself) can cause messages to be sent
unfinished, without attachments, or with tone and content you regret
immediate

Tools > Rules and Alerts
New Rule
Start from a blank rule.
Check messages after sending. Next
Don't select anything (apply to all messages) Next (accept the prompt)
Defer delivery to a number of minutes. 1 min is the minimum - should
be enough to catch the accidental sends and the ones you immediately
regret Next
Don't add any expections. Next
Name the rule something like "Delay send for 1 minute". Tick turn on
rule.
Finish.

Relax for a minute after sending any message - even urgent ones.
Remember - you used to have to wait for a courier even for the most
urgent messages

Only works if the user is in the habit of leaving Outlook running all
the time (sometimes true on a corporate network and connecting to
Exchange but far less true for home users). Once the user composes
their mail and clicks Send, they exit Outlook. When Outlook isn't
running, pending mails don't get sent. When the user reloads Outlook
the next time to read or send mails, the delay time has already elapsed
and the outbound mail gets sent immediately. God forbid anyone actually
bothers to review their message BEFORE hitting the Send button.

So how is the user hitting the Send button - a deliberate action by the
user - considered a "bug" in Outlook? You would prefer the user has to
hit the Send button a dozen times before the mail actually gets sent?
If your instance of Outlook is performing a Send without you ever
clicking the Send button (or hitting Alt+S) then the problem is with
your particular setup. I have yet over several years of using several
hundred different Windows hosts when using Outlook or for years of
reading posts seen the Ctrl+V combo result in issuing an Alt+S combo
unless key mapping was involved.

So how many minutes did you wait before clicking Send on your post here?
It wasn't long enough. Missing punctuation, excessive abbreviation,
garbled phrases, and directions written akin to chatroom-speak. Waiting
to send does not equate to actually *reviewing* before sending.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

It's not a bug in outlook- it's user error. This method is better than
recall if you have a habit of changing your mind but if you have a habit of
accidently sending messages before completing them, get in the habit of
adding "garbage" text to the To field so it can't resolve the text as an
address.

http://www.outlook-tips.net/archives/2007/20070508.htm
http://www.outlook-tips.net/archives/2004/20040112.htm

 

[dunxd]

It's not a bug in outlook- it's user error. This method is better than
recall if you have a habit of changing your mind but if you have a habit of
accidently sending messages before completing them, get in the habit of
adding "garbage" text to the To field so it can't resolve the text as an
address.

There *is* a bug in Outlook, where pasting a URL with CTRL+V sometimes
sends the message instead of pasting the link. I encountered this bug
frequently enough that I set up the 1 min delay rule. I subsequently
found it incredibly useful for other reasons than catching the bug -
hence posting it as a tip.

I think delay is better than adding garbage text to the to field - you
don't need to remember to do anything and it always works.

D

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I paste a lot of URLs and have never hit this "bug". Ctrl+Enter is a send
shortcut... I'm guessing you hit enter after the paste, while Ctrl is still
enabled, either because of sticky keys (either the keyboard sticks or sticky
keys is enabled) or you are really fast with Enter and slow at releasing
Ctrl.

The tip itself is nothing new - it's been around for years. It's popular
with Exchange users as Exchange doesn't have a 'check every xx min' like
pop3 does so there is no time to change your mind after composing a message
and Recall doesn't work very well. But if you do this often and need to go
into the outbox to recover it, its an extra step that can be avoided by
using the garbage address method. Also note that going to the outbox to
recover a message may cause other messages on the outbox to not send.