How to prevent sending emails accidentally in Outlook?

Author Kelly Last modified 2025-04-15

In outlook daily work, sending emails accidentally take places at times, as a result of shortcut keyboards, mistakes, or other reasons. Here, I will share several workarounds to prevent from sending emails by accident in Outlook.

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by disabling hotkeys

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by Check Name feature

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by Delay Delivery feature

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by disabling hotkeys

Some emails are sent accidentally because of shortcut keyboards of sending emails in Outlook. Here, this method will guide you to disable the hotkeys of sending emails.

1. Click "File" > "Options" to open the Outlook Options dialog box.

2. In the Outlook Options dialog box, click "Mail" in the left bar, scroll to the "Send messages" section, and uncheck the "CTRL + ENTER sends a message" option. See screenshot:

the screenshot of step about preventing sending Outlook emails accidentally by disabling hotkeys 1

3. Click the "OK" button to save the change.

From now on, messages won’t be sent when you pressing the "Ctrl" + "Enter" keys together in Outlook.

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by Check Name feature

Some emails are sent by accident before you correct some mistakes, add message content, etc. Here, this method will guide you to prevent sending emails accidentally by the Check Name dialog box.

1. Click "Home" > "New Email" to create a new email, and compose it as you need.

2. Type a random string in the "Cc" or "Bcc" field, and press the "Send" button. See screenshot:

the screenshot of step about preventing sending Outlook emails accidentally by check name feature 1

3. When the Check Names dialog box comes out, click the "Cancel" button to exit it.

the screenshot of step about preventing sending Outlook emails accidentally by check name feature 2

4. You return to the Message window. Clear the random string from the "Cc" or "Bcc" field, make changes as you need, and click the "Send" button again to send the email.

Prevent sending Outlook emails accidentally by Delay Delivery feature

This method will guide you to configure the delay delivery settings for an email, therefore you can prevent this email from being sent before the specified delivery time in Outlook.

1. Click "Home" > "New Email" to create a new email, and compose it as you need.

2. Click "File" > "Info" > "Properties" to open the Properties dialog box.

3. In the Properties dialog box, check the "Do not deliver before" option, specify the delivery time, and click the "Close" button. See screenshot:

the screenshot of step about preventing sending Outlook emails accidentally by Delay Delivery feature 1

4. Now you return to the Message window, click the "Send" button.

The email lines up in the Outbox folder until the specified delivery time. Before the delivery time, you can cancel the sending easily by deleting the email from the Outbox folder.

How to undo send (unsend) a sent email in Outlook?

How to send emails x minutes/hours later in Outlook?