There’s a simple little option buried in Outlook for Windows that will make your life a tiny bit easier. An Outlook Life Hack, if you will. We’ve added a bonus Outlook shortcut with a warning.
When typing a list of email recipients you have to separate each with a semi-colon.
There’s nothing hard about typing a semi-colon except that it’s not common or as easy as typing a comma.
Many moons ago, Microsoft added the option to separate addresses with a comma as well. For some reason, it defaults off so most people don’t know it’s there and get this warning if they try.
Under Options | Mail scroll down to Send Messages and there’s the choice you need.
Commas can be used to separate multiple message recipients.
Simple as that. Now just type names, or parts of names separated by comma or semi-colon.
Outlook for Mac: does NOT have the same option. Our Mac friends must use the semi-colon.
Bonus Outlook Hack
Press Alt+K to resolve what you typed into either existing contacts or email addresses ready to send.
Watch out! Outlook chooses the first match it finds in the contact list and does NOT show you options.
For example, we typed ‘peter’ then Alt + K and Outlook put the first Peter it found in the Contact list. There are many other ” Peter’s ” in the Contact list but Outlook ignored them all in favor of the first match it found.
Double-check that Outlook has chosen the correct contact when automatically resolving addresses.
