Shared Email Templates for Outlook was created to save your time. With this tool, you can use your templates in any Outlook, whether desktop or online, including Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the web. As all templates are stored in a sharing cloud-based service, you can easily share them with your colleagues united into one or several teams.
To start using your templates, simply install the add-in via the Microsoft Office Store, sign in, create a team and invite your mates. If you have security concerns, just encrypt your templates with your own secret key.
To get to know the add-in, you can read this introduction and then study the documentation pages. Also, you can download the cheat sheet with all the basic functionality of the tool shown:
Download cheat sheet
How to start Shared Email Templates
To learn to start the add-in, click on the version of Outlook you use in the list below:
Supported versions
The add-in works for Outlook email accounts connected to Microsoft/Office 365, outlook.com, or on-premise Exchange 2016+.
- Outlook on Windows connected to Microsoft/Office 365
- Outlook on Mac connected to Microsoft/Office 365
- Outlook on Windows 2019
- Outlook on Windows 2016
- Outlook on Mac 2019
- Outlook on Mac 2016
- Outlook on the web
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- Google Chrome 78 and higher
- Microsoft Edge 44 and higher
- Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) – beta support 79 and higher
- Safari 12 and higher (limited support)
- Firefox 69 and higher
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Shared Email Templates in Outlook
You can download the detailed User interface overview cheat sheet:
Download cheat sheet
When you run Shared Email Templates in your Outlook, you will see the add-in pane:
- Type any text into the Search field to search in the names and content of templates, folders, and teams. Also, you can select text in your message body, click the Magnifier icon and get the list of items that contain this text.
Don't forget to deselect the selected text in the message body before pasting the template!
- Take advantage of the Selection mode to select several items and copy, move, or delete them at once.
- Select the view: All Templates, Favorite Templates, My Templates, Shared Templates, or Shortcuts.
- You can add any template to Favorite Templates by right-clicking it and selecting Add to Favorites.
- The default personal folders are Favorite Templates and My Templates. You can create new sub-folders for your templates.
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You can link an Outlook folder with your drafts to Shared Email Templates and use these drafts as templates. Linked folders are marked with a blue letter "O".
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You can create or import datasets and insert values from them into templates. Datasets are marked with a corresponding icon.
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You can create ready-made reply templates or use shortcuts to construct your emails and templates. Shortcuts have a hash symbol before the name.
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To insert a template into the message body, select it and click the Paste icon.
- Shared templates are stored in teams. You can invite members to your teams and share templates with them.
- To secure your privacy, you can encrypt your team. Encrypted teams have a small key sign on the label.
- These are the template actions: Paste, Edit in Browser, Edit, Add to Favorites, Copy, Move, Delete.
- When you stand on a template, you can see its contents in the preview pane.
- Click this button to create a new template.
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The Handle Shortcuts button, you'll need to click it if you use shortcuts to create your emails.
- By clicking the three dots, you can go to your profile, sign out, get online help, view logs, ask us a question, or see the version of the product you use.
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Here, you can see Notifications. If there are unread notifications, the icon is red, and you can click on it to see everything you missed.
Shared Email Templates in your browser
You can manage your templates and teams in a browser. Simply open the Shared Email Templates home page and log in:
- Your templates are collected by folders: All Templates, Favorite Templates, My Templates, Shared Templates, and Shortcuts. This toolbar lets you filter all templates by the selected folder.
- When you stand on a template, you can see its contents on the right and edit it.
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Click Plus to create a new template, folder, or team.
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Here are the Notifications. If there are unread notifications, the icon is red, and you can click on it to see what you've missed.
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Click the three dots to open the More menu.
Documentation and how-to guides
Responses
Hi Guys,
I added it to our 365 tenant today and am already impressed by what it can do. We use a lot of canned responses and the guys have used signatures in the past. this is unfortunately un-fit and static. The macros in this are fantastic!
One question however, when will you integrate the user logins with OAuth /O365? I note one of the comments above having trouble with their login, SSO with 365 would make it much easier.
Hi James,
Thank you for your feedback.
About SSO. For us, it’s all about the security of your sensitive data. We have not implemented Office account-level SSO because we cannot afford to have permanent access to your inbox, OneDrive and SharePoint. That is why, every user should have their own account for Shared Email Templates, and when our add-on needs to access the currently opened mail item, OneDrive file or SharePoint item, we ask for a time-limited access token. So, you can be sure that the add-on does not monitor your data and does not share Office 365 access tokens between sessions, devices or web-services. Use end-to-end encryption (passworded teams) and be confident that we could never get any of your data, even in theory.
The user can now remember login/password, so they won’t need to enter the credentials on every add-on start or when accessing their OneDrive/SharePoint.
Hi Eugene,
Apologies, I did not see your reply until today. Thank you for the very candid and open response. I appreciate your position and it does make perfect sense. I will pick up my evaluation of your product as i really do like the way it functions - especially how I envisage it working in our business.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond directly.
All the best,
James
Can this be implemented into an organization which means create one template and share it among all employees ?
Hello Charbel,
Sure, you can create templates and share them with your co-workers. Here are the instructions on how to create a team:
https://www.ablebits.com/docs/outlook-shared-templates-teams/
Hello!
I have used your application for Microsoft Outlook since last year. Last week, after the Windows update, the application began to require my e-mail and password (I have already forgotten both because they were never mentioned before). I tried to enter ALL of my e-mails to recover the password, but no reaction (wrong email). What should I do? Thank you!
Hello Evgenia,
Thank you for contacting us. For us to be able to understand the problem you faced better, please specify which of our add-ins you're using exactly and send us a screenshot of the window where you're asked to log in to support@ablebits.com. Thank you.
Is it possible to reorder templates in a folder?
Hello,
Thank you for your question. Unfortunately, it is not possible. We have not implemented this option considering possible performance issues and UI responsiveness slowdown. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Hi guys!
Just discovery what appear to be a bug on Outlook Shared Template Plugin: I can't login on the server (through outlook client and online, or even through https://email-templates.app/#/signin) when I'm connect via my OpenVPN client. The problem is promptly solved when I disconnect my VPN.... Could you please help me on how to solve that problem?
Hi José,
Sorry to hear that you are having difficulties with our add-in. One of our support service agents has just replied to you by email. Please send us the details requested in the email message. They will help our developers understand what's causing the issue and provide you with further instructions. Thank you.