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Delaying Mail

By Lee Brannon

 Updated and reposted 2/2/09

 

I have been asked often about whether or not people can send e-mails in outlook when they are not actually on the computer.

Although there are many legitimate reasons for doing this usually the question is asked when someone is trying to find out if someone else is trying to pull one over on them. The legitimate reasons are things like, you want the message to arrive when the person is actually at their computer, so it is not buried in last nights pile of SPAM.

The other reasons run something like, someone sends you an e-mail at 11:00 at night claiming that they are working late, but you happened to have seen them at the local buffalo wings restaurant a few minutes before that. 

Regardless of your reason for wanting to know the answer the answer is obviously “yes”.

Some e-mail packages will not have this type of feature and others will have better options.  For example, there is no option with Thunderbird (The email program I am currently using.)  for delaying mail.  There is an add-in available at  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/1814 that will flush out your outbox at regular intravals but this is not the same thing as delaying an individual email. Outlook is currently the most common e-mail package, so we will stick with it.

Outlook itself offers a fairly simple way to schedule the sending of e-mails. I believe this feature is available in versions of Office 2000 through the current version.

The best way to understand this is to see how it is done.

This example will show the steps for the older version of Outlook. 

  • Create a new e-mail in Outlook.
  • Put in the e-mail address you want to send it to and the subject.  Then type in the message you want to send.
  • Now instead of clicking the send button go to the options... button int he tool bar and click it.

 

  • You will get a box like the one displayed above. Now check the option for “do not deliver before:” and enter the date and time you want to have the message sent.
  • Now click the close box and then click the Send button.

In this case the message will not go out until 8/28 at 11:00 P.M.

Note:  If you are using Outlook with an Exchange server running on another machine the message will go out whether or not you are logged in, running outlook or even if your workstation is turned off. However if you are using Outlook to “Pop” mail you should be aware that if you close outlook or shutdown the computer before the designated date and time the message may stay in the queue until you bring out look back up.

 

It becomes a little more tricky and takes a little more sophistication if you need messages to go out on a regular basis.  For example if you want to send a reminder message every week day at 8:00 A.M.  However you can create your own scripts and many commercial add-ons will allow you to do this also.

Really complex way (instructions are dated)

Most people could not follow: http://www.outlookcode.com/d/forms/skedrpt.htm

Simple way – commercial Plug-ins (almost all offer 30 day trials)

http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/toolbox/email_scheduler.html

(I found a couple of million references to e-mail schedulers on the Web)

Here are some more…

 

Schedule Recurring Email

Send messages at regular intervals, similar to the scheduling for recurring appointments. Send an attachment or even the contents of an entire folder. Triggers Outlook security prompts only when creating the messages, not when sending them. For Outlook 2000 and 2002. Discount Code, enter during checkout: WD9BHK53

SendLater

Send messages at the date/time of your choice either once or recurring. Can transmit the latest version of a file. Outlook needs to be running when the time for sending the message arrives. Outlook 2000 or later.

 

 

I have currently done some testing with the following and it works fairly easily. I got it from www.Cnet.com

 

SendScheduler Outlook 1

 

Tested spyware free

· License:Free

· Average User Rating:

(out of 4 votes) Rate it!

· Downloads: 712

· Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server, Microsoft Office 2000 or higher

· Limitations: No limitations

 

One final note: if you are investigating whether or not someone “Delayed” a message delivery you can sometimes see the original time the message was sent by viewing the full headers. 

 

Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation.

 

© 2009 Lee Brannon All rights reserved.

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