Since the beta release of Outlook 2010, I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to find all the new shortcut keys for common tasks I perform several times an hour. I mean honestly, after YEARS why change the Reply All Shortcut key from Alt+L to Alt+Shift+R? Or the Reply shortcut key from Alt+R to Ctrl+R? <sigh> Like all things, technology things change, so we might as well get used to the new Shortcut Keys in Outlook 2010 and move on. Right?
To kick things off, here’s the list I’ve been able to compile. If you see one I missed, please drop it in the comments, and I’ll be sure to add it to the master list below. Have fun!
Outlook 2010 Keyboard Shortcut Keys
- CTRL+1: Switch to Mail.
- CTRL+2: Switch to Calendar.
- CTRL+3: Switch to Contacts.
- CTRL+4: Switch to Tasks.
- CTRL+5: Switch to Notes.
- CTRL+6: Switch to Folder List in Navigation Pane.
- CTRL+7: Switch to Shortcuts.
- CTRL+PERIOD: Switch to next message (with message open).
- CTRL+COMMA: Switch to previous message (with message open).
- CTRL+SHIFT+TAB or SHIFT+TAB: Move between the Navigation Pane, the main Outlook window, the Reading Pane, and the To-Do Bar.
- CTRL+TAB: Move around message header lines in the Navigation Pane or an open message.
- Arrow keys: Move around within the Navigation Pane.
- ALT+B or ALT+LEFT ARROW: Go back to previous view in main Outlook window.
- CTRL+Y: Go to a different folder.
- F3 or CTRL+E: Go to the Search box.
- ALT+UP ARROW or CTRL+COMMA or ALT+PAGE UP: In the Reading Pane, go to the previous message.
- SPACEBAR: In the Reading Pane, page down through text.
- SHIFT+SPACEBAR: In the Reading Pane, page up through text.
- ALT+RIGHT ARROW: Go forward to next view in main Outlook window.
- CTRL+SHIFT+I: Switch to Inbox.
- CTRL+SHIFT+O: Switch to Outbox.
- CTRL+K: Check names.
- ALT+S: Send.
- CTRL+R: Reply to a message.
- CTRL+SHIFT+R: Reply all to a message.
- CTRL+ALT+R: Reply with meeting request.
- CTRL+F: Forward a message.
- CTRL+ ALT+J: Mark a message as not junk.
- CTRL+SHIFT+I: Display blocked external content (in a message).
- CTRL+ SHIFT+S: Post to a folder.
- CTRL+SHIFT+N: Apply Normal style.
- CTRL+M or F9: Check for new messages.
- UP ARROW: Go to the previous message.
- DOWN ARROW: Go to the next message.
- CTRL+N: Create a message (when in Mail).
- CTRL+SHIFT+M: Create a message (from any Outlook view).
- CTRL+O: Open a received message.
- CTRL+SHIFT+D: Delete and Ignore a Conversation.
- CTRL+SHIFT+B: Open the Address Book.
- INSERT: Add a Quick Flag to an unopened message.
- CTRL+SHIFT+G: Display the Flag for Follow Up dialog box.
- CTRL+Q: Mark as read.
- CTRL+U: Mark as unread.
- CTRL+SHIFT+W: Open the Mail Tip in the selected message.
- ALT+ENTER: Show the properties for the selected item.
- CTRL+SHIFT+U: Create a multimedia message.
- CTRL+SHIFT+T: Create a text message.
- CTRL+ALT+M: Mark for Download.
- CTRL+ALT+U: Clear Mark for Download.
- F9: Send and Receive.
- CTRL+B (when a Send/Receive is in progress): Display Send/Receive progress.
- CTRL+SHIFT+D: Dial a new call.
- F3 or CTRL+E: Find a contact or other item (Search).
- F11: Enter a name in the Search Address Books box.
- SHIFT+letter: In Table or List view of contacts, go to first contact that starts with a specific letter.
- F5: Update a list of distribution list members.
- CTRL+Y: Go to a different folder.
- CTRL+SHIFT+B: Open the Address Book.
- CTRL+SHIFT+F: Use Advanced Find.
- CTRL+SHIFT+PERIOD: In an open contact, open the next contact listed.
- F11: Find a contact.
- ESC: Close a contact.
- CTRL+SHIFT+X: Send a fax to the selected contact.
- CTRL+N: Create a new appointment (when in Calendar).
- CTRL+SHIFT+A: Create a new appointment (in any Outlook view).
- CTRL+SHIFT+Q: Create a new meeting request.
- CTRL+F: Forward an appointment or meeting.
- CTRL+R: Reply to a meeting request with a message.
- CTRL+SHIFT+R: Reply All to a meeting request with a message.
- ALT+0: Show 10 days in the calendar.
- ALT+1: Show 1 day in the calendar.
- ALT+2: Show 2 days in the calendar.
- ALT+3: Show 3 days in the calendar.
- ALT+4: Show 4 days in the calendar.
- ALT+5: Show 5 days in the calendar.
- ALT+6: Show 6 days in the calendar.
- ALT+7: Show 7 days in the calendar.
- ALT+8: Show 8 days in the calendar.
- ALT+9: Show 9 days in the calendar.
- CTRL+G: Go to a date.
- ALT+= or CTRL+ALT+4: Switch to Month view.
- CTRL+RIGHT ARROW: Go to the next day.
- ALT+DOWN ARROW: Go to the next week.
- ALT+PAGE DOWN: Go to the next month.
- CTRL+LEFT ARROW: Go to the previous day.
- ALT+UP ARROW: Go to the previous week.
- ALT+PAGE UP: Go to the previous month.
- ALT+HOME: Go to the start of the week.
- ALT+END: Go to the end of the week.
- ALT+MINUS SIGN or CTRL+ALT+3: Switch to Full Week view.
- CTRL+A: Select all contacts.
- CTRL+F: Create a message with selected contact as subject.
- CTRL+J: Create a Journal entry for the selected contact.
- CTRL+N: Create a new contact (when in Contacts).
- CTRL+SHIFT+C: Create a new contact (from any Outlook view).
- CTRL+O: Open a contact form for the selected contact.
- CTRL+SHIFT+L: Create a distribution list.
- CTRL+P: Print.
- CTRL+ALT+2: Switch to Work Week view.
- CTRL+COMMA or CTRL+SHIFT+COMMA: Go to previous appointment.
- CTRL+PERIOD or CTRL+SHIFT+PERIOD: Go to next appointment.
- CTRL+E: Find a message or other item.
- ESC: Clear the search results.
- CTRL+ALT+A: Expand the search to include All Mail Items, All Calendar Items, or All Contact Items, depending on the module you are in.
- CTRL+SHIFT+F: Use Advanced Find.
- CTRL+SHIFT+P: Create a new Search Folder.
- F4: Search for text within an open item.
- CTRL+H: Find and replace text, symbols, or some formatting commands. Works in the Reading Pane on an open item.
- CTRL+ALT+K: Expand search to include items from the current folder.
- CTRL+ALT+Z: Expand search to include subfolders.
45 Comments
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shockersh
thnx for this. best list i’ve seen yet. did you compile this from the net or do you have an inside at msft?
Rich
Let’s buy an Apple! That makes so many shortcuts even not required!
How to print an e-mail with only one push on a button?
Dee
? people print emails?
Ketan
This is a very good list. Helped me on couple instances.
Thanks.
MrGroove
@Ketan – Thanks for the feedback. We try to keep things clean and straight forward! If you come across any other keyboard tips, feel free to drop em here!
Kiran
Hi Groove,
Can we know how customized shortcut key’s work in outlook2010. As i observed its getting change in different clients.
Thanks,
MrGroove
I’ve found the short-cut keys have changed from the Outlook 2010 BETA to final client. Changed for the better actually.
What exactly is your question tho?
Martin
Hmm. the Alt+S does not work for my anymore? Any Thoughts? (Have checked the Keyboard
MrGroove
Open and close Outlook. Are you running Beta or Final RTM?
Martin
RTM – Danish version…
albert
Good list! very useful! Thanks
Ingrid
What is the keystroke to open a message (within Outlook Inbox) that contains attachments? I used to be able to select a message and press the Application button. The selection to ‘Open Attachment’ was there, but it seems to be missing in the Office 2010 version.
Chauncey
Has anyone figured out how to page down a longer multipage message in Outlook 2010 without using the mouse and scrollbar? I don’t use the reading pane, so it is open in a new window, but it is SUPREMELY ANNOYING to have to click somewhere in each message in order to let my Page Up/Down keys and up/down arrows work.
Chauncey
A little clarification on my previous question. It seems to lose focus/scrolling most often when there is a graphic or a table in the long email message. Some text-only messages scroll without having to click with the mouse first. A fair number of HTML-based messages, regardless of whether they have had the images downloaded, will not respond to home, end, page up, page down, down arrow, up arrow UNTIL the mouse has been clicked somewhere in the message.
Jade
Does anybody know what the keyboard shortcut is for cancelling an email message that has is accidentally being sent?
Please let me know.
Thanks :)
MrGroove
No… However, you could just setup a delay for all emails you send. Give yourself a few minutes for each just in case you need your brain to catch up with your fingers from time to time. :)
I personally use it on all my outlook installs.
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/delay-defer-schedule-delivery-outlook-2010-email/#2-delayall
In the example in the screenshot, I think I set it to 10 minutes but I think you could make it 2 or 3 minutes also.
Rajeev Gupta
Ctrl + E is a basic search (and it does not fetch any result…it’s useless). What is the shortcut to the search functionality (like old oulook) where it asked for size between x to y…Time…etc?
john browning
I have multiple email accounts in Outlook, and in Outlook 2003, when wanting to switch an outgoing message from my default email account to a different one, the shortcut was Alt-N-[#], with the # representing the email account (so, default account is 1, the second account listed in my account list is 2, etc.).
This shortcut no longer works, and I can’t figure out how to do it (Alt-M (or clicking on the “from” button in the email header) brings up the list of accounts, but they aren’t numbered, so I have to (god forbid!) use my mouse to make the change. Sending emails from various accounts during the day, and this is driving me crazy!!!!
Agree, why would they change the shortcuts!!!!
Any thoughts on this one???
Vickey
After you hit Alt+M, use the up or down arrows to select the account you want, then press Enter.
I agree, these are PITA steps backward. Why, or why?
Don Green
I don’t really mind Microsoft changing the std. shortcuts, if their focus groups report that it’s better (which, I assume, is what happened). What I HATE is that Microsoft has Outlook 2010 as a exception to the general operation of Office 2010, where in the other programs (e.g. Word or Excel), you can set keyboard shortcuts to whatever you want. In Word 2010, the new (f) takes you to a “navigation pane” which I guess the focus groups loved, but I hate. But, no flames from me because in the “customize ribbon” window is a “keyboard” button that let me re-map f back to my preferred find/replace window.
For Outlook 2010 MS decided I must learn new, exciting, and different shortcuts, even for such routine things as “find”! What I find completely baffling is why MS would fail to include the polite functionality to let us re-set shortcut keys in Outlook.
Candace
Hi,
Great list of shortcuts! I have a problem when trying to find an email from a person. For example: Ken, I am in my inbox I click on from and type K or KE and nothing happens. I always have to scroll with the mouse to the letter and manually look for the name. I never had this issue with the old outlook and it is very time consuming. Any ideas how to fix that setting?
Rajeev Gupta
Hi Candace, This feature is still there. We can sort the emails in Inbox (or any other folder) by clicking on “From”, “To”, “Subject” etc. Then as we type a first few letters (very fast), I am able to reach the respective email. For example, if I sort with ‘From” and then type “can” very fast, I would reach emails from Candace, Candell and so on. Hope this was what you were asking.
Vadiraj
Hi,
Is there any keyboard shortcut ket to sort the mails by sender (i.e. mails by “from” column).
Thanks in advance.
kushagra
Hi Vadiraj
Did you find the shortcut to sort the inbox “from” sender?
Thanks a lot
Sushil
Alt + V then AB then F
David
I found this while going absolutely crazy with the new hotkeys. Why would they take away the hotkey to accept and decline meeting invites? Seriously, who thinks changing mnemonics that have been in place for years is a good idea? It’s bad enough that they made it much more difficult to change font, etc., in Word and Excel, but to remove such a simple and often used set of hotkeys?
Oh, I found the brilliant combination: Alt+H, then C then E, S, or D. Yes, Alt+C then Enter is now Alt+H then C then S. Yay, thank you Microsoft!
Ed Parker
Is there a shortcut which will turn on “include message or attach message” which I am responding to or turn off “include message in response?” It has always taken several steps to turn on and off including message with reply. Only occasionally do I want to include the incoming message with the reply. Thus I want to keep this feature off most of the time. Thank you.
Ed Parker
Thanks for your tips. By the way, if asked for my opinion, I would make spelling checkers not insist on “Internet” with a capital “I” and “e-mail” with a hyphen. I know you don’t use the hyphen “Groovy” so this is off topic. I just wanted to express my opinion. With Outlook and Word I can add these words to my dictionary, but this cannot be done with Yahoo! or Gmail.
Razibul Hassan
All the necessary Outlook shortcuts at a single place! Thanks for it. Now I can use outlook more conveniently than ever. I’m yet to learn all the handy shortcut though…
Angie H.
You have helped me be sane again. Thank you SO MUCH. Found old shortcuts that I was dying without and learned some new ones. Woo hoo!
mso
being learning to type on the us keyboard and now I’m in France and having hard time trying to type on their french keyboard. Any short cut keys to change their keyboard so I can use it just like in the US instead of looking for the keys all the time?
appreciated it..
Damian
hey there, in the opening paragraph you write “more on”, I think you mean “move on”…
the shortcuts of CTRL + 1, CTRL + 2 are very useful thanks!
Balamurugan Vaiyapuri
Hey Steve,
Thank you for the collection. Nice work!
Graham
Thank you! But, is there still no shortcut to mark something as Junk? (sigh)
Giles
Hi,
I can’t seem to find a shortcut to open an email attachment, I rarely use the mouse so need a quick way to open each email attachement from the inbox view.
Any ideas?
ta.
giles
vads
Go to the mail which contains attachments (do not open that mail).
Then press “Shift+F10”. Then press “h”.
Brs
·
CTRL+8: Switch to Journal.
Steve Krause
great tip. Will add it to the list.
KPK
Whats the Key stroke to sort the messages by Sender ??
Don Green
And, now that I’m clogging up the comments with the obvious (to many people), might as well add these:
CTRL+B to make bold,* CTRL+I** to make italic, or CTRL+U to underline.
CTRL+L to left-justify text, CTRL+E to centre it, CTRL+J to justify it, and CTRL+R to right-justify it
*Note that CTRL+B works to Bold text while editing a message, but has an alternate application in Steve’s main list during Send/Receive.
** That’s CTRL+ the letter I, for Italic, not the number 1. … which makes me realize that we’re all getting more aware of what’s “case sensitive” for computers, and what is not. Really, we mean CTRL+i since CTRL+I would suggest also pressing the SHIFT key, which then wouldn’t work.
Plus a new one I just learned, and wish I’d known years ago: SHIFT+F3 toggles the capitalization of selected text — lower cast, capitalize first letter, capitalize all.
Claire Walsh
I desperately need the short cut key for insert comment. Can you help?
Thanks, Claire
Don Green
Hmmm … looks like I messed up the order of my posts, by clicking the REPLY button. So, since that may send a message to KPK that somebody had answered KPK’s question, I’ll just insert here an answer that there isn’t a shortcut key to sort by sender — you have to click on the column heading of what you want to sort messages by. Also note that clicking it a second time reverses the order (i.e. A-Z then Z-A).
Don Green
I just realized there’s a small error, and omissions, on your excellent list.
First the small error:
“CTRL+A: Select all contacts.”
This isn’t quite right. CTRL+A selects all of whatever item you’re in. Yes, in Contacts, it will select all contacts. But, in an email it will select all of the text. Or, in a list of emails, it will select all of them. If you type CTRL+A while typing an email, it won’t select all contacts.
Second, the list is missing some near-universal shortcuts, and I think it’s be worth including these, because some people aren’t aware of them. Also, since Outlook changes at least one of my favorites (CTRL+F — which usually means Find within current text), it might be reassuring to find the others there as we expect them to be. I’m sure you know these, but in case you think these are too generic to include in your list, I’ll describe them here. The ones that come to mind are CTRL+ V,X,C,Z,Y,:
CTRL+V
which is the standard shortcut for insert or paste. This works in drafting emails, to paste in text. I wish there were a shortcut for insert/paste SPECIAL, making it easy to paste in text without also pasting in the formatting of the insert, but apparently there isn’t.
CTRL+X is Cut & Insert in Clipboard (so it’s available to paste in somewhere else; very handy for moving text within a document)
CTRL+C is Copy — copy text to the clipboard, but don’t delete it from where it is already.
CTRL+Z is Undo — undo the prior action. Note Outlook remembers several actions, so CTRL+Z several times will undo the prior several actions. CTRL+Z may also work if Outlook tries to help you by doing some auto-correct or something but you preferred the text the way you typed it.
CTRL+Y is Redo, AKA Undo Undo. If you CTRL+Z, but don’t like that, you can undo the undo with CTRL+Y.
AshRockz
Can you please tell what is the keyboard shortcut to sort by Sender ? Without using mouse to go and click on Send/Received column.
I widely use it more than others.. will be helpful. Thanks.
Ruhul Amin
how can I Open attachment with shortcut key?