Manage email using Outlook's Quick Steps

MICROSOFT 365 SUBSCRIPTION, OR OUTLOOK 2013 OR LATER Copy style of what’s needed.

- NIK RAWLINSON

MANAGING YOUR EMAIL CAN BE A FULL-TIME JOB. It can take hours to sort, especially if you get a lot of messages that need forwarding, dealing with another time, or deleting.

This is something that email developers are trying to fix. They realise that streamlining the process is likely to win a host of new users. Outlook’s approach is a tool called Quick Steps, which lets you join a series of tasks that can be executed in sequence with a keyboard shortcut.

The process works like macros, which you may have heard talked about in relation to documents, spreadsheets, and attachments. That’s because, like a sequence in Quick Steps, macros are series of commands that execute automatically in a given order. However, because macros are built by hand using a programming language, they can perform a wider range of tasks than Quick Steps, which are restricted to functions that are already part of Outlook.

This is both a benefit and a challenge. Since macros are more flexible, they’re also more powerful, so hackers could use them to steal data from your PC, or even delete it in bulk. Quick Steps can’t do this, although they can be used to delete messages if you set them up that way.

Here, we’ll show you how to set up three Quick Steps sequences to keep your inbox in order. Before you get started, make sure Quick Steps is visible on the ribbon toolbar. If Outlook is set to show the simplified toolbar, right-click it select Use Classic Ribbon to reveal the panel. Then, click the square icon below the panel to pop out the full Manage Quick Steps box. 

1 PUT OFF REPLYING TO AN EMAIL UNTIL LATER