Microsoft Outlook Tips and Tricks

These Microsoft Outlook Tips also work with regular users of Microsoft Outlook for the PC and Mac.

You have a lot of things to do every day. Sending and responding to emails is one of them. Although dealing with email messages can be time consuming, it’s a necessary part of doing business.  Naturally, anything that can reduce the amount of time you have to spend on email, piques your interest. Well, if you use Microsoft Office 365, we have provided a list of keyboard shortcuts that you can use to navigate your Outlook email account, whether you use a Mac or a PC to do business.

  • The first shortcut, Control + 1 (command + 1 for Mac) switches you to Mail.
  • The second shortcut, Control + 2 (command + 2 for Mac) takes you to your calendar.
  • Control + 3 (command + 3 for Mac) opens up your contacts list.
  • Need to schedule an appointment? Control + Shift + A (command + Shift + A for Mac) will get you started. Regardless of where you are in Outlook, if you press that combination of keys, you’ll be able to make a new appointment.
  • If you press Control + Shift + M (command + Shift + M for Mac) from anywhere in Outlook, a message window will open, and you can start composing a new email message.
  • While you have a message open, pressing Control + comma [,] (command + comma [,] for Mac) will take you to the previous message you received. If you press Control + period [.] (command + period [.] for Mac), you will switch to the next message.
  • Once you’ve finished composing a message, pressing Control + Enter (command + Return for Mac) will send it.
  • Pressing F3 (command + F3 for Mac) will open the search pane.
  • If you press F4 (command + Q for Mac), you will close Office 365 completely.

The above shortcuts may not save you a lot of time, but they will make navigating Outlook quicker and easier without your hands’ ever having to stray to from your keyboard to your mouse.