Delay Delivery Rule Behavior Changed in Outlook 2013

To avoid sending emails without attachments and other silly mistakes, we've always used an Outlook Rule to delay deliveries by a couple minutes. It's in one our Outlook tips on our web site: Delay Sending Your Emails in Microsoft Outlook

That's worked nicely for many versions. It still works for Outlook 2013, but with a different twist.

In earlier versions, if you opened the delayed message from the Outbox, edited it and sent it, the time would restart. So if you had a 2 minute delay, the message would sit in the Outbox for another two minutes. With the 2013 version, the original time is used, so if the two minutes have passed, the message is sent immediately.

Is there a way to fix this so the clock gets reset after each Send to be compatible with prior Outlook versions? T

February 6th, 2015 10:38am

Hi Luke Chung,

I've tested in both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010, but they all acted like Outlook 2013. Delayed emails didn't wait another 2 minutes after I modified it. This seem the default behavior of Outlook and there is no option to control this. To work around it, we can open the email in Outbox and then manually modify the delay time by clicking File > Properties > Delivery options section.

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

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February 8th, 2015 10:37pm

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance. 

Best Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

February 11th, 2015 8:39pm

Thanks for the follow up. I think you're getting mixed up between a delayed setting on one email from a delay Rule for all emails.

The rule I'm discussing is described here: http://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftOutlook/DelayingEmails/index.html

I've re-confirmed the behavior is different in Outlook 2013 from all previous versions:

  • With Outlook 2013 and 2010, both with the specified rules having a 2 minute delay
  • Create a message in both Outlook 2010 and 2013, and send it.
  • Confirm that both messages are sitting in the Outbox
  • Before the two minute delay is up, open both messages and edit it
  • Send them AFTER the original two minutes has expired
  • The message in Outlook 2010 remains and is sent after another two minutes, as expected, giving time to edit it again.
  • The message in Outlook 2013 is sent within a few seconds. That's not good.



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February 12th, 2015 12:15pm

Thank you for the update, Luke.

I totally understand your meaning, but I missed "Send them AFTER the original two minutes has expired" step when testing in my environment. I just sent the message immediately after modifying it. Now, I can reproduce the same issue as you mentioned in all versions of Outlook. However, just as I mentioned in my first reply, this is by design in Outlook 2013 (not sure if this is the expected behavior), and there is no option within Outlook to change this.

I'll submit a feedback regarding this issue to Microsoft via internal way to see if I'll get any information.

BTW, we can use the method I mentioned above (change delayed setting on the email you modified via File > Properties > Delivery options section) as a workaround for this issue when using Outlook 2013.

Thanks for your understanding and support.

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

February 12th, 2015 9:41pm

Thank you for confirming this. The ability to have a message delayed in the Outbox after I press the Send button, especially after editing a message from the Outbox, is a very important feature to me. I think I'll get in a lot of trouble without that feature.

Based on this, I'll go back to Outlook 2010 until this is resolved in a future version. Thanks for you help. We'll update our web page with the information learned here.

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February 13th, 2015 3:02am

Dear Luke,

Apologize for the inconvenience caused. Although this feature cannot be changed in Outlook 2013 now, your feedback is appreciated. It will help improve later versions of these products. Microsoft values all customer feedback.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

February 24th, 2015 8:47pm

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