Expiring mail in Outlook

There’s a feature in Outlook that allows you to send an email that “expires” at a certain date and time. Sandra and I were discussing it the other day, and we really didn’t know what it would do. I decided to figure it out for today’s tip. 🙂

When you create a new email, you have some options you can set to cause particular behaviors that are outside the normal set you use. Click the Options tab in the Ribbon Bar and go over to the More Options section and click the dropdown box to get the full range of Message Options:

The Message Options Properties box has a number of options, including the ability to mark a message as Expired After a particular date and time:

So when I send the email, it looks pretty normal:

But once 7:55 am rolled around, the entry in my Inbox now has a strike-through line on it, and the email itself has an expiration message stating the date and time when it was no longer valid:

I figure this is perfect for when the emails about free donuts in the break room is sent out, and you know after 15 minutes, they’ll be completely gone. 🙂