The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on April 7, 2022.
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Today's Highlights
- Reply with attachment?
- Address Book Search: always use Names only
- Multiple Reminders in Outlook
- Change Reminder Sounds
I'm taking next week off. The next issue of Exchange Messaging Outlook will be April 21, 2022
Reply with attachment?
Every now and again, I get asked how to reply with an attachment.
The answer: Outlook does not have an option to include attachments in replies. Forwarding a message will include the attachment but you need to add the recipients to the message and it breaks conversation threading.
Why isn't it an option? Because the people who sent you the message, and who you are replying To, have the attachments. Why would you want to resend the same material back to the people who just sent it to you?
While there are valid reasons to include the attachment (or better yet, a link to the file) – such as adding additional people to the reply and they will need to see the attachment – one reason it is not an option goes back to the days of small mailboxes, when replying with attachment could quickly fill your mailbox with unnecessary attachments.
You have a few options if you do need to send the original attachment back:
1. Before hitting reply or reply all, copy the attachment then paste it into the reply. If there is more than one attachment, you can select all and copy. This is the easiest if you don’t need to reply with attachments very often.
2. If you open the reply in a new window, you can drag and drop from the original message. As with copy and paste, you can select all and drag the attachments to the new message.
3. If you need to reply with attachments frequently, a macro to reply with attachments might work better for you. See Reply or ReplyAll with Attachments for one such macro.
4. Change your reply settings to attach the original message. Look for it in File > Options > Mail. “When replying to a message: Attach original message” in the Replies and Forwards section. My opinion: this is a bad option because the recipient needs to open the message to get the attachment. If you want to send the original as an attachment, you can drag it to the reply, or just drag the attachment to the reply (better).
Address Book Search: always use Names only
When you open the Outlook Address Book to find a contact, you have a choice of searching Name only or All Columns. The last used setting should be saved and selected the next time you open the address book.
If you always want it to open to a specific setting, regardless of the last change you made, you can set a registry key.
The value is stored in the ABSearchMode value in the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences
However, editing that key is pointless because it will be overwritten when you change the option in the address book.
If you add the ABSearchMode value to the policies path, the address book will always open to your preferred setting. You’ll need to add the keys in the path if they do not exist (and the path under Policies probably won’t exist).
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\outlook
DWORD: ABSearchMode
Value 0 (all columns) or 1 (names only)
With this key set, the Outlook address Book will always open to the Search option you set. If you need to use the other search option, you can select it, but when you close and reopen the Address Book, it will revert back to the choice in the registry key.
Multiple Reminders in Outlook
A user wanted to set multiple reminders in Outlook on Windows. They wanted a reminder a few hours or days before the event or appointment and also be reminded an hour before the event started.
While outlook doesn’t support setting multiple reminders, when the reminder goes off, you can reset it for a new date. When the reminder fires, double click on the event in the reminder window and change the reminder.
I use a macro to reset my reminders. My default is 30 minute reminder and when it fires, a macro resets the reminder to 15 minutes and then to 5 minutes. Get the macro at Reset reminders closer to Meeting time. If you prefer hearing your reminder, I also have a macro that can read your reminders: Talking Reminders.
Outlook on the web can add a reminder and sent an email notification. Outlook desktop does not have this option but you can use a macro to replicate the feature: Send an Email When a Reminder Fires. If you use Outlook.com and Office 365 business account, you can add an email reminder to events in Outlook on the web.
Change Reminder Sounds
While we’re on the subject of reminders, you can change the reminder sound for individual events or appointments in Outlook on Windows.
When setting the reminder, select Sound at the very bottom of the predefined reminders list and choose the desired sound. The browser will open to your documents folder, if you want to choose a different from windows themes, they are at C:\Windows\Media.
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