How to Create Email Templates in Microsoft Outlook

One of the best ways to save time on repetitive tasks is to create templates. Templates help provide structure or form for any content. For example, in Microsoft Outlook, users can create email templates instead of creating new emails from scratch every time.

INDIA – 2019/08/06: In this photo illustration the popular mail application Microsoft Outlook logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

These email templates are very useful when outgoing emails have the same content or similar structure. To Create Email Templates in Microsoft Outlook, users can use the “Quick Parts” feature or the “My Templates” plugin. This is how it works:

Create Email Templates in Microsoft Outlook using Quicks parts

Quick Parts is a library in Microsoft Outlook that contains reusable content such as text and images. Users can easily select these items and paste them into emails, meeting requests, tasks, etc. Use Quick Parts to create email templates:

Note: Microsoft introduced Quick Parts in Outlook 2007 to replace the AutoText that existed in previous versions.

Step 1: Launch Microsoft Outlook on your computer.

Step 2: From the Ribbon, select New Email to create the mail to be saved as a template.

Step 3: Highlight the text of the mail.

Step 4: Click on the Insert tab and on the Text group, click on the Quick Parts drop-down.

Step 5: From the options listed, select Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery to launch a dialog box.

Step 6: Within the dialog box, fill in the relevant details for the fields below:

Name: This is a unique identifier for each entry. Quick Parts lists names in alphabetical order. You will find this very useful when you have multiple entries.
Gallery: Outlook can help you save the content of quick parts in a specific library. This is very useful when you save a large number of templates.
Category: Unless you need additional grouping of templates, you should stick to “General”. Categories are like subfolders, belonging to galleries.
Description: This comment helps to describe each entry or template. You will never see this attribute, so you don’t have to worry about it.
Save In: To ensure that the content can be used in Outlook emails, please use NormalEmail.dotm. You can also isolate your entries based on templates.
Options: Using this attribute, you can determine how to insert a single entry.

Step 7: Click on OK to save the details of your new entry. You can always access this entry for different purposes, including creating emails.

Step 8: To use the new template, go to the part of the email where you need the template to appear.

Step 9: Select Quick Parts and click on the template to be used.

NOTE: Any item saved in Quick Parts is only available locally on the PC.

CREATE EMAIL TEMPLATE USING THE MY TEMPLATES ADD-IN

My template is an add-in provided by Microsoft that enables one-click text input. This feature allows users to save frequently used phrases and add them to emails as needed. This feature is pre-installed in Outlook; however, the user must have an email account on the Microsoft Exchange server.

How to use my template add-in:

Note: My template add-in is available under Microsoft Outlook 2019, 2016 and 2013 and Microsoft 365.

Step 1: Launch Microsoft Outlook.

Step 2: From the Ribbon, select New Email.

Step 3: On the Messages tab and within the My Templates group, click on View Templates.

NOTE: If the view template add-in is not pre-configured in the Outlook ribbon, please select “File” and “Manage Add-in” to install it.

Step 4: On the new dialog box, click on Template.

Step 5: In the empty text boxes, provide a title and the body of the email.

Step 6: Click on Save to ensure the template is available anytime you need it.

Step 7: Click on the newly created template to transfer it to the body of the email.

NOTE: Templates created using the My Templates add-in are saved in your mailbox and can be accessed from anywhere.

CREATING EMAIL TEMPLATES IN GMAIL

Whether you use the Quick Parts feature or My Templates add-in, you can easily create simple templates in Microsoft Outlook. You can also use Gorgias to create templates in other email applications, such as Gmail.