Microsoft Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts to Improve Overall Email Experience

Microsoft’s recent endeavour took everyone by surprise. MS has given a preview access to revolutionary Outlook webmail service, which might change the perception of the people about Hotmail and other web based mail offerings from the software giant. The Redmond based company has unveiled its intention to take on the unassailable Gmail service. At a first glance, you might get surprised with the familiar metro look. MS would have thought retiring incondite Hotmail features and interface and hence the all new Outlook service. In our previous post, we advised users to hurry and grab their desired email ID before someone else does it.

Microsoft has also facilitated an option to import contacts from Gmail to Outlook.com along with other social networking sites. However, advanced Gmail users may look for keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate between emails and perform certain errands. Well, even Microsoft offers Outlook.com keyboard shortcuts, that will aid in improving the overall email experience. Users can either turn-off or turn on Outlook keyboard shortcuts or can use shortcut keys of Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Isn’t it prolific? Let’s see how we can achieve this in simple steps.

Microsoft Outlook.com Keyboard Shortcuts (OWA)

To enable or disable Outlook.com keyboard shortcuts, you need to follow certain procedures.

1. From the right hand side top corner, click Gear icon or Settings options.

2. From the list of setting options select Keyboard shortcuts option. It is located under Customizing Outlook label.

3. On the next Windows it will provide you following options

• Turn off keyboard shortcuts
• Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA)
• Yahoo! Mail
• Gmail

By default, Outlook and Outlook Web Access keyboard shortcuts option is enabled. You can either decide to turn off or use other services like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail shortcut keys.

Outlook.com Keyboard Shortcuts

Here is a full list of Outlook.com Keyboard shortcuts

Delete a message	Delete
Create a new message	Ctrl+N
Send a message	Ctrl+Enter
Open a message	Ctrl+Shift+O
Print a message	Ctrl+Shift+P
Reply to a message	Ctrl+R
Reply all to a message	Ctrl+Shift+R
Forward a message	Ctrl+Shift+F
Save a draft message	Ctrl+S
Flag a message for follow up	L
Categorize a message	C
Mark a message as junk	Ctrl+Shift+J
Mark a message as read	Ctrl+Q
Mark a message as unread	Ctrl+U
Move to a folder	Ctrl+Shift+V
Open the next message	Ctrl+.
Open the previous message	Ctrl+,
Close a message	Esc
Search your email messages	/
Check spelling	F7
Select all	S then A
Deselect all	S then N
Go to the inbox	F then I
Go to your Drafts folder	F then D
Go to your Sent folder	F then S

 

In case, if you’re not comfortable in using Outlook.com keyboard shortcut, you can activate Gmail and Yahoo! Mail keyboard shortcuts. To follow the list of those shortcuts you can refer this list. These shortcut keys will greatly improve your email experience and will also save lots of time taken in performing the task through mouse buttons.

Do you use keyboard shortcuts in Outlook or any other email service for that matter? Which are your favorite shortcuts that you use often?