10 Useful Outlook 2007 Plug-ins and Tricks
Posted by: Shoban Kumar ,
on 6/24/2009,
in
Category Outlook 2007
Abstract: In this article, we will see 10 useful Outlook Plug-ins and Tricks that can be used with Outlook 2007.
10 Useful Outlook 2007 Plug-ins and Tricks
In this article, we will see 10 useful Outlook Plug-ins and Tricks that can be used with Outlook 2007. Some of them should even work in previous versions of Outlook.
Tip 1: Defer Email in Outlook: Sometimes we send an email and then realize that we missed an important part of the message. I always wished we had Ctrl + Z (Undo) in Outlook. But here is an easy trick to delay email messages even after you press the “Send” button. We achieve this by creating rules in Outlook. Here is how to do it.
a. Open Outlook > Click Tools> Rules and Alerts.
b. In the popup window click ‘New Rule’. In the resulting window select ‘Check message after sending’ > click Next
c. Click ‘Next’ in the next window and Press ‘Yes’in the alert window.
d. Select the last option ‘defer delivery by a number of minutes’ and in the ‘step 2’ window enter the number of minutes you wish to delay the email.
e. You can click ‘Finish’ to create the rule.
Note: Sometimes, there may be emails which need to be sent out immediately. For these specific cases, you can add an exception by clicking ‘Next’ and setting the exception in the next window.
f. As you can see in the screenshot given below, I have selected outlook to send the email immediately if there is a particular word in the email - In our case for demonstration purposes, it’s the letter ‘$’.
Tip 2: Detect Missed Attachment in Outlook - How many times have you missed an attachment in your email? Gmail has a wonderful labs feature which will alert you if you miss attachments in your email. Forgotten Attachment Detector is an Outlook plug-in from office labs which does the same job. Once you start using this plug-in, you will never miss attachments in your important emails here after.
Tip 3: Display Sender’s Time zone in Outlook: I work for a company which has an office in India and UK and many times during email conversations, it is confusing to see what time was the email sent. This is where Sender’s Time Zone plug-in came to my rescue. This plug-in shows the exact time in which the email was sent.
Tip 4: Email with subject: Subject line is a very important part of an email. Most people prioritize the emails based on the subject line. Unfortunately, most people don’t add a proper subject line to their email. It becomes even worse when they miss the subject line. Here is an outlook macro which will alert you when you try to send an email without a subject line. Here are the steps to implement the macro:
a. Open outlook and press Alt + F11. This will open the Visual Basic Editor
b. Add the following code
Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, ByVal Cancel As Boolean)
Dim strSubject As String
strSubject = Item.Subject
If Len(strSubject) = 0 Then
Prompt$ = "Subject is Empty. Are you sure you want to send the Mail?"
If MsgBox(Prompt$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, " Subject") = vbNo Then
Cancel = True
End If
End If
End Sub
c. Save and Close the editor. Next time when you send an email without a subject line, the following alert message will be shown.
Tip 5: Recover Deleted emails in Outlook: Do you know that you can recover an email even if it is deleted? If you have accidently deleted any emails, then click “Deleted Items” to view deleted email. Now click Tools > Recover Deleted items. A new window will popup which will let you recover all your deleted emails.
If you don’t see the “Recover deleted items” in your menu then here’s how to add it to the registry setting:
a. Start Registry Editor using Run -> regedit.
b. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software->Microsoft->exchange->client.
c. Create a new DWord “DumpsterAlwaysOn”. Note: This is case sensitive.
d. Right click on the DumpsterAlwaysOn and modify the Value data to 1 and click on OK. Note: 1 – Turn On, 0 – Turn Off
e. Now open Outlook and click on Tools.
d. Choose ‘Recovery Deleted Items’.
Tip 6: Display a Second Time Zone in Outlook Calendar: Here is how you can display a second time zone in your outlook calendar.
a. Click Tools > Options > Calendar Options, and then click Time Zone.
b. Enter a label for your current time zone (for example, DE for Germany) > select the Show an additional time zone check box . and then select the appropriate time zone from the list displayed.
Tip 7: Sync Facebook, Gmail Contacts with Outlook:OutSync is a free Windows application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook Similarly you can sync your Gmail contacts with outlook using Go Contact Sync.
Tip 8: Manage Tasks in Outlook using DeskTask: I use Outlook extensively to manage my tasks and DeskTask is one of the most useful plug-ins. DeskTask is a free windows application which displays tasks and calendar on your desktop.
Tip 9: Run Outlook in Multiple Instances: By default Outlook does not connect to two different exchange servers at the same time. You can connect to different servers using different profiles, but it is not possible to run different profiles at the same time. It’s a pain to restart Outlook to check different email accounts in different servers. This is where Extra Outlook comes to rescue. This free windows application will enable outlook to run in multiple instances. Here is a blog post about how to use Extra Outlook.
Tip 10: Mini calendar in Outlook Out of office reply: Wouldn’t it be cool if you add a mini calendar, showing your holiday plan, in your out of office replies? Here is the detailed explanation from outlook team blog about how you can do this.
I hope you liked these tips and will find them useful!
Shoban Kumar, is a 23 year old techie from Trivandrum mainly working on ASP, ASP.NET, VB, VB.NET and PHP. You can also find him blogging at www.crankup.net and www.codegeeks.net. Follow him on twitter @shobankr
This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.
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ShobanKumar is an ex-Microsoft MVP in SharePoint who currently works as a SharePoint Consultant. You can read more about his projects at
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