Microsoft’s Outlook email offers a helpful shortcut in which you can reply to an email, forward an email, or start a new email without leaving the currently open email.
Here in this short article, I will walk you through a couple of Shortcut Keyboards to Reply/Forward in outlook.
Shortcut Key to Reply in Outlook
Reply in Outlook, the point is whether you need to reply only to the sender or reply to everyone.
- Open Outlook, Press ‘Ctrl’+’Shift’+’I’ Switch to the Inbox folder, and select your email message using the Up and Down Arrow key you need to reply.
- To reply only to the sender, Press ‘Ctrl+R’ that opens a message addressed to the sender, with the cursor in the message body, ready to compose a response on the right side of the window.
In case you need to open it in a separate window, you need to click on Pop up.
- If you need to reply to everyone, press ‘Ctrl’+’Shift’+’R’ to open a message addressed to everyone on the To and Cc address lines, the cursor is available in the body to compose your message, again on the right side of the window.
Shortcut Key to forward in Outlook
To forward a message, press Ctrl+F. This will open the message ready for your input, with the cursor on the To address line. From here, you can enter the name of the recipient.
Note: The default cursor in both scenarios (Reply and forward) is different, in reply to the email address of the sender is already entered, and all you must do is type the message, but in the case of forwarding the message Outlook doesn’t know the recipient.
Shortcut Key to Open reply and forward in New Window
In both the above cases Reply to the sender and reply to all, you will not get a separate window, you need to click on the popup icon available in the right corner of the reply window. If you need a separate window while you click on these shortcut keys, you must modify a minor change.
Let’s understand the keyboard shortcut to Open reply and forward in New Window.
Open Outlook, Click Alt + FT, which opens the Outlook Options dialog box, click the Down arrow, and select Mail from the left navigation section, Click the Tab until you reach the Replies and forward section, and click the Space bar to select the checkbox of Open replies and forward in a new window, and Hit Enter to enable and close the dialog box.
Now you can repeat the Keyboard Shortcut, and you will observe the Reply window open in a New Window.
To send the message after this click the Keyboard shortcut Alt+ S to send the message.
Reply/Forward in Outlook for Mac [Shortcut]
Mac users need to understand the Keyboard shortcut which is slightly different from Laptop and Desktop users.
- If you want to respond to the sender of the message on Mac – Click ‘⌘’ + ‘R’
- If you want to respond to all senders of the message on Mac – Click ‘⌘’ + ‘SHIFT’ + ‘R’
- Forwarding the message from Mac – Press ‘⌘’ + ‘J’
Reply/Forward in Outlook Web [Keyboard Shortcut]
Working on Outlook web is different from Outlook application, once you open outlook.com you will get an inbox folder on your screen, and you can select the email message using the Up and Down arrow:
- Press SHIFT+F to forward the email message This will open the message ready for your input, with the cursor on the address line. From here, you can enter the name of the recipient.
- Press SHIFT+R to Reply to the email message that opens a message addressed to the sender, with the cursor in the message body, ready to compose a response on the right side of the window.
Final Words
In conclusion, once you learn the shortcuts, it becomes not only easy but effortless. Remember the times when you used to click Reply and type a message? Or forward too. Those were the ways of the old times.
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