A user with a Microsoft Exchange server mailbox wanted to prepare some messages to send later but didn't want to leave Outlook open or open it to send.
I want to schedule an email to send on the Exchange Server so that I can schedule emails to send while I’m on vacation without having to boot my laptop and open my email 1-2 times per day. I know how to do this in desktop Outlook, but you need to open Outlook on your laptop for this to work. Can I do this using Outlook on the web?
Deferred delivery is not supported in Outlook on the web. You can delay sending mail for a few seconds (to prevent accidental sends) but cannot configure a message to send later, as you can in Outlook on Windows.
When you defer sending a message, in either online or cached mode, Outlook will always show the Sent time as the time you pressed Send, not the time the message was sent by Exchange.
Because you are using a Microsoft Exchange mailbox (either on-prem or Office 365 Exchange online) you can send messages later, with Outlook closed, as long as you can set up the account in Outlook desktop using Online mode.
When you use online mode, the deferred messages are submitted to the Exchange message queue and held until the scheduled time. (Outlook doesn’t have a local cache when you use online mode, so it can’t hold them at the client.)
This only works if you have the account set up in Outlook in online mode. It will not work with Outlook.com accounts as they do not support online mode.
By default, Outlook sets Exchange accounts up in cached mode. You can check in File, Account Settings: open the account settings dialog, and double click on the account. Cached will be ticked by default when you set up the account, untick it to drop to online mode. The status bar should say 'Online', when you have cached mode turned off.
Before you disable cached mode: if you have the messages already in the Outbox move them to Drafts folder first so they will sync to the server. After you switch to online mode, go to the Drafts folder and Send the messages.
You won't see the messages if you look in Outlook on the web, so you just have to trust Exchange. To verify it is working, create an email to email address you can check on your phone. Defer it for 15 min from now and click Send. Close Outlook. If you receive the message in 15 min, it’s set up properly.
If you don't use Outlook for Windows or can't use Online mode, you can vote for (and comment on) this suggestion at Outlook uservoice: Ability to Schedule/Delay Sending Emails 365 ONWEB
1. Use Outlook 365 in cached mode.
2. Compose an email.
3. Press a special "delayed send" button with VBA code attached.
4. The VBA code will prompt the user to select a day/time to send the message.
5. The message would then be treated as an "online" message and placed into the drafts folder so that the Microsoft Exchange server would control the delayed sending and not the client.
Is this possible?
When you use cached mode, the message is held in the Outbox on your own computer, its not held in Exchange's outgoing que. You need to use online mode, which is only possible in business accounts.
You can use VBA to set the delay - but its going to be held in Outlook until the appointed time.
A VBA sample showing how to set the delay time is here:
AFAIK, the functionality exists in the Outlook add-in named "Boomerang".
How they handle it in chaced mode but qued in Exchange server?
They hold it on their servers, not in Exchange, and release when it's time.
It does not wok. It's a petty that such a useful feature is not available in Outlook when it works so flawlessly in gmail...
Outlook has two delay options - up to 120 minutes using a rule or you can delay mail to a set time (like next Friday). As far as I know, google only delays mail for up to 30 seconds, should you change your mind about sending it.
A rule holding mail for 1 minute replicates the gmail feature.