This morning a series of new features coming to its Outlook for Mac 2016 software for Office 365 users, including those that will allow you to schedule your emails, track the message’s delivery, and find out if the email was read, among others. Some of the changes are rolling out first to those who receive early updates through Microsoft’s Office Insider Fast program, while other new additions, like email templates, will arrive today.
Outlook for Mac users can also choose to decline to send read receipts. To make it quicker to send the same type of emails, messages can now be saved as The great thing about email (being an asynchronous mode of communication) is that I can choose to respond (or not) on my schedule.
Being able to schedule delivery is something Outlook has supported for some time in other versions of its software across platforms, including Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016, through its ” feature available in the Options menu in the Message. The new “Send Later” feature in Office for Mac 2016, however, adds a drop-down next to the Send button itself.
After clicking on this option, you’re then able to select the date and time you want to send your email, which is saved to your Drafts folder until it’s time. Also new to Outlook 2016 for Mac is support for delivery and read (opened) receipts when sending messages.
Microsoft notes, though, that email recipients can choose to decline to send read receipts. That means the feature won’t go so far as to replace the more advanced email tracking solutions on the market, which tend to use sneakier tactics in order to determine when messages are opened. The updated software will support email templates, too, as well as the ability to turn your emails into calendar events, just by dragging and dropping the email onto the calendar itself. This will turn the email subject into calendar subject, while the body of the email is filled into the event’s Notes field. The same drag-and-drop will also work to turn emails into tasks, if you prefer.
Setting up new accounts is also now easier, as you no longer need to know what type of account you have (like Office 365, Exchange, IMAP or POP), and if you’ve signed into other Office apps before using Outlook, the software will just prompt you to add that existing account. The company says it prioritized which items to launch first based on user feedback, and these additions represent four of the most requested features. Most features are available today. The Request a Delivery and Read receipts, email templates, and creating calendar events and tasks from emails additions are available today to all Office 365 subscribers on version 15.35 (170610), says Microsoft. And the improved account setup experience is available to all Outlook Mac users on version 15.34 (170515).
However, “Send Later” is first available to Office Insider Fast users today on version 15.36 (170606) but won’t reach all Office 365 subscribers until July.
If your Auto/Send Receive stops working for some reason it can be pretty frustrating because you have to remember to manually do a Send/Receive (F9). If you are having issues with Outlook not sending or receiving emails automatically, here are a few things to try. This article pertains to Outlook 2016 but the options in Outlook 2013 are similar. Here’s the article I wrote for Outlook 2013:. Solution #1: Send/Receive Deactivated? This solution has worked for me both in Outlook 2013 a couple of years ago, and again in Outlook 2016 today. For some reason, the option to Send/Receive messages gets disabled in Outlook.
I haven’t figure out exactly why it gets disabled. To fix the problem you need to clear the option Disable Scheduled Send/Receive in Outlook 2016. In Outlook 2016, on the Send / Receive tab, click on the drop-down option Send/Receive Groups. At the bottom of the listing you will find the option to Disable Scheduled Send/Receive. If you only have a few accounts it is easy to get to the option but if you are like me and have a lot of accounts in your Outlook profile, you need to scroll all the way down at the very end of the account listing and click on the option Disable Scheduled Send/Receive.
It’s a toggle, so clicking will either enable or disable it, depending on the setting. Once the option has been enabled (there is no check box next to it), your auto Send/Receive should start working again. There is no need to restart Outlook. TIP: During testing, it is best to configure the time for scheduled Send/Receive to 1 minute.
After you have fixed the problem you can go back and reset your time to the original setting. The default time for a scheduled Send/Receive is 30 minutes. Solution #2: Corrupt Send/Receive Group One of the common reasons for auto Send/Receive to stop working has to do with a group Send/Receive group in Outlook. Here’s how to fix the problem with the corrupt Send/Receive group.
In Outlook 2016, go to File - Options - Advanced - Send/Receive. Create a new Send/Receive Group in Outlook 2016, or create a copy of the All Accounts group. Configure this group by checking the following two boxes: – Include this group in send/receive (F9) – Schedule an automatic send/receive every X minutes (where X is the time in minutes). You must enable both of these options or else Outlook 2016 will not do an automatic Send/Receive.
You may also be interested in selecting the option for Send/Receive when Outlook is offline. Once you have the new group configured, disable the built-in All Accounts group because that’s the group that is potentially corrupted and you must deactivate it. You can disable the All Accounts group by unchecking every single box, as shown below.
Restart Outlook. Hopefully this will fix the auto Send/Receive problem. If not, try the next solution.
Solution #3: Disable Add-Ins Most users can fix the auto Send/Receive problem by disabling the problematic add-in. Usually it is a third-party add-in that causes problems in Outlook. I often see people start blaming Microsoft when the third-party add-ins don’t work in Outlook but Microsoft is not responsible for third-party add-ins. They are written by a third-party (e.g. Adobe) and are the responsibility of the third-party to make sure they work with Outlook. The best approach is to disable all the add-ins that are currently in use and then start enabling them one-by-one until you find the add-in that is the culprit.
Once you find the add-in that is causing the problem, contact the company that created the add-in to see if they have a new version. If not, remove that add-in to avoid any issues in the future. In Outlook 2016, go to Options - Add-Ins - Manage COM Add-ins - Go. Here you can enable or disable individual Add-ins by selecting or clearing the box for the add-in.
![Find Find](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125620154/129082550.png)
Clear all the boxes and then enable one add-in at a time. Verify that Send/Receive works. If it does, go back and enable another add-in. Keep repeating this process until you have found the add-in that is causing the Send/Receive to fail. Hopefully, one of these solutions will solve your problem. Update: May 22, 2017 Based on Robert’s suggestion, I have moved Solution #3 to the top of the article so now it’s Solution #1.
Copyright © 2016 SeattlePro Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. Hi Mica, Sorry, I can’t think of another solution to the Send/Receive problem right now, but if something comes to mind I will let you know. Keeping up with Windows updates is important because it may fix some of the bugs. You may have already done this, but make sure that your Windows updates are configured to receive the Office updates, in addition to the operating system updates. If you are receiving Office updates, try the solution I’ve posted for “Corrupt Send/Receive Group” one more time.
Sometimes creating the group once doesn’t seem to be enough and you have to delete and recreate the group a couple of times. You can also experiment with different settings within the group and make sure you set the time for 1 minute during experimentation.