How to Schedule Send Emails in Outlook: Delay Delivery to Any Time

You need to send an email at a specific future time, not immediately. This is a common requirement for coordinating with different time zones or managing communication after hours. Outlook includes a built-in feature called Delay Delivery for this purpose. This article explains the steps to schedule an email for any date and time from your desktop client.

How the Delay Delivery Feature Works

The Delay Delivery feature does not send the email through your server immediately. When you click Send, Outlook moves the message to your local Outbox folder. The Outlook application itself must remain running and connected to the internet. At the scheduled time, Outlook processes the message from the Outbox and transmits it via your configured email account. This is different from some webmail services where the scheduling is handled server-side.

A key requirement is that the Outlook program must be active. If you close Outlook or put your computer to sleep before the scheduled time, the email will not send until you reopen Outlook and it connects. For this reason, scheduling emails to send overnight or while you are away requires your PC to be awake and Outlook to be left open.

Steps to Schedule an Email for Later Delivery

1. Compose your new email
   Click New Email to start a message. Add all recipients, write the subject, and complete the email body as you normally would.
2. Navigate to the Delay Delivery options
   With the new message window open, go to the Options tab on the ribbon. In the More Options group, click the small dialog box launcher icon in the bottom-right corner.
3. Set your delivery time
   In the Properties dialog that opens, find the Delivery options section. Check the box next to “Do not deliver before.” Use the date and time drop-down menus to select your desired future send time.
4. Send the email to your Outbox
   Click Close in the Properties dialog. Then, click the Send button in the message window. The email will now move to your Outbox folder, where it will wait until the scheduled time.
5. Verify the scheduled email
   Navigate to your Mail folder list and click on Outbox. You should see your scheduled email listed there. You can double-click it to open and make edits, or right-click it to delete if you need to cancel the send.

Using Rules to Automatically Delay All Sent Mail

You can also create a rule to delay every email you send by a fixed amount, such as one minute. This gives you a brief window to recall a message. Go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts > New Rule. Select “Apply rule on messages I send” and click Next. Do not add conditions, click Next again. Select “defer delivery by a number of minutes,” click the underlined “a number” in the bottom pane, and enter 1. Finish the rule setup. This rule will place a one-minute hold on all outgoing messages.

Common Mistakes and Limitations to Avoid

Outlook is closed at the scheduled time

The most frequent cause of a failed scheduled send is closing the Outlook application. The program must be running and connected to your mail server. If you schedule an email for 3 AM and shut down your laptop at 5 PM, the email will not send. It will remain in your Outbox and will send the next time you open Outlook, provided that time is now past the scheduled delivery time.

Scheduling too far in advance on a shared computer

If you use Outlook on a shared or work computer that may be reassigned, avoid scheduling emails months in advance. The scheduled email data is stored locally in your Outlook profile on that specific machine. If your profile is deleted or you lose access to that computer, you will lose the scheduled email.

Confusing Delay Delivery with Recall

Delay Delivery and Message Recall are separate features. A delayed email sits in your Outbox unsent. The Recall feature attempts to retrieve or replace an email that has already been sent from your Outbox to the recipient’s mailbox. Once a delayed email is sent at its scheduled time, you cannot use Recall to delay it again; you would need to use the standard Recall command, which has many limitations.

Delay Delivery vs. Outlook on the Web Send Later

Item	Outlook Desktop Delay Delivery	Outlook on the Web Send Later
Where scheduling happens	On your local computer	On the Microsoft server
Requires app to be open	Yes, Outlook must be running	No, scheduling is server-side
Access to scheduled items	Only from the PC where it was created	From any web browser
Primary use case	Precise timing from a known workstation	Sending from anywhere or when PC is off

You can now control exactly when your emails are delivered using the Delay Delivery feature. Remember that Outlook must remain open for the schedule to work. For more control over your sent items, explore creating rules to manage all outgoing messages. An advanced tip is to press F12 while the scheduled email is in your Outbox to save a copy as an .msg file for your records.