Beginner’s Guide to Outlook Made EASY - With Copilot Tips

Stop staring at a blank email. Outlook isn't just  for sending messages anymore. It's now your smart   assistant. What if you could draft a quick email  or get answers without even leaving your inbox? Hey everyone, I'm Jamie and welcome to Teachers  Tech. Today I'm showing you exactly how to use   Microsoft Outlook from the ground up. This is your  complete beginner's guide to mastering your email   and contacts. Plus, they'll show you how to use  the new co-pilot chat feature that's built right   in and available to all M365 accounts. No extra  subscription required. We'll cover everything   from sending your first email to keeping your  inbox clean and organized. So, let's get started.

First of all, where do we access our Microsoft  Outlook account? Well, we can do this in a few   different ways. I'll mainly be using the desktop  app in this tutorial to show you how it works,   but I want to point out if you're not on your  computer, you can log in using Microsoft 365 app.    I'll put the link down below in the description  to access your Outlook and it looks and operates   exactly the same. So, I'm going to go get signed  in to show you where it is here. I'm logged into   my Microsoft 365 Copilot account. I'm using a  work account, but whether you're work, school,   or personal, this should all look the same. Notice  right away it defaults to the chat page here,   which looks a lot like chat GPT. Works very, very  similar to it. If you move down to the apps page   here, notice that we have Outlook right here. So,  if I go ahead and click on this, it's going to   open up Outlook. And you can see when I go ahead  and open up my desktop app, things are going to   work and look very identical. I do want to point  out I have a different video about showing you how   to use Microsoft 365 Copilot, how to use the chat,  or even how to create an AI agent. I'll put the   link to that down below in the description. Let's  move over to the desktop app now. Now that I have

my Outlook desktop app open, let's get ourselves  familiar with the layout. Let's start over here   on the left. This is where you're going to access  your email. Now, as we go down, you'll notice that   there's calendar. I'm going to do a different  video about how to use the Outlook calendar   because this is a very important feature and I  want to make sure I spend the time on it. Now,   here we have people. This is where you're going  to have your contacts, which I'll cover later in   this video. We also can have some quick access to  apps, but you can customize this to yourself. So,   if I click on this right here, and let's say  if I'm using Excel a lot, if I rightclick,   I can go ahead and hit pin. And notice it will be  right here. But you can take these away quickly,   too, just by right-clicking and unpinning. So, you  set that up the way you want. If I want to go back   to mail, you'll see how everything goes back to  my email. Now, here, this is our inbox. I'm only   using one inbox, but you could actually have  multiple inboxes that you could have different   email addresses and it will come into here. This  is where I can do my quick glance to see all my   different emails coming in and get an idea of  who they're from. But as soon as I click on them,   you'll see this is where I can read it and  the details of that specific email. Now,   up top here, we have some tabs. We have our home,  view, and help. As I click on each of these tabs,   notice down below the ribbon changes. So, this  area right through here is the ribbon. And it's   important to know all these different features by  using them because there's lots of things in here   that makes Outlook very powerful. And over on the  right hand side here is Co-Pilot. And no matter   what subscription you have, you're going to see  it over here. But it will change if you do have   the paid for version of C-Pilot. you will have  more capabilities versus the one that just comes   with all Microsoft 365 accounts. I'm going to  have a separate video about how to use the paid   for version C-Pilot in the different Microsoft  apps. Also important to know where to adjust your

settings. And if I go to view, you'll see settings  right here. You're also going to see the gear up   top. This will bring you to the same place.   When you click on settings, and I'm going to   stretch this out here. You can see there's lots of  different ones. In this beginner's video, I'm only   going to be touching on a few, but you might want  to go to general and even change the appearance.    So, if you like the dark mode or if you want image  themes, you can go ahead and choose them and hit   save. And you'll notice it will be the background  will be different of your Outlook. So, do take a   look at the settings and all the different things  you can adjust. Let's start by sending an email.    But right before I do that, I want to make a  quick customization to my layout. I'm going

to go up to view and over here in the layout part  of the ribbon here, I'm doing a drop-down and I'm   going to go to fill screen. Notice how it changed  the layout. So now, if I click on this email once,   it will open up here for myself to read. If I  close it, it goes back. If I doubleclick on it,   it will actually pop open. So, just a quick way to  change the layout to get it the way you want. So,   if we go back to home now, I'm going to go click  on new to start our email. Here is where we put

the email address to who we're sending it  to. So, if I start typing a name in here,   and I'm just going to use this one. So, this is in  my contacts. So, that's why it's it came up. Now,   if I had a different email that wasn't in my  contacts, I just could go ahead and write it   out and then it will add it. Now, this is the  main person that I'm sending the email to,   but sometimes you want to send a carbon copy or  CC it over to somebody else. Now, that person   might not necessarily respond to the email, but  they'll know that the email has happened. So,   I could go ahead and add another person to this  here that will get a copy of that. But you're   also going to notice that there's BCC over here.   Now, this is blind carbon copy. If I don't want   anybody to see the email that's going to be uh  sent because other people will be able to see. So,   in this case, Jamie will be able to see the CC on  this. But if you don't want the person to see it,   that's where you're going to put the blind  carbon copy in. Now, let's go ahead and add   a subject line. And I want to point out this  right now. If you get distracted and maybe   you don't have time to finish up the email,  everything's being saved in draft. If I go   over here right now and click on draft, you'll see  this is what I have. So, if I click on it again,   it goes back. So maybe you're starting to write an  email and then you don't have time. Don't worry,   the draft will be saved and you'll have you could  have multiple drafts over here. So just remember   you don't have to get it done all at once. You  can go back to your drafts and find it later. Now   let's go ahead now and add the message. And we'll  just put this. So we can go through at any time   and start to format any of this. You're going to  notice that it's very similar to Microsoft Word.    anything I go uh and highlight all right away I  can make some changes. So if I wanted something   bold or if I wanted something highlighted I can do  that. So maybe in an email you want to show that   something's very important you could highlight it.   You'll also notice in the basic text formatting is   right up here as well. If you want to add a link  to something, how I usually do it is highlight   what I want. So maybe there was going to be a  video. I'll say watch this video. At the end

of this, I could go ahead and highlight a word.   And at this point, this is where I can insert a   hyperlink. And also notice up top in the ribbon,  I can access it this way. So if I click on it now,   it's just going to display as video. And I could  go ahead and put a link maybe to a YouTube video   or to a file or to a website. I can hit okay. So  now when they get this email, this is going to   be a link that they'll be able to click on and it  will open that up and it looks a lot neater than   putting a whole URL with a lot of other things in  it. We can also add attachments and you're going

to see that right up top here. So I can click here  and I could go get one of these files here or I   could go to one drive. I could even browse the  computer and upload a file. when you're typing   inside your message, whenever you put forward  slash, you're going to notice a quick way you can   access this as well. So, if I wanted to put these  central sales numbers in here. So, now in this   video, in this email that I'm about to send, I  have a video link and an Excel file. And now I can   go ahead and send it. Notice that the draft email  went away because it's no longer a draft anymore.    It is in the sent items. So, if I go ahead and  click on sent items, I can see all the different   emails that I've sent people. So, I can make sure  if I forget something and be like, "Oh, what did   I write in that email? " I can go back and open it  up and then check to see uh what I said. You can

use Copilot to help you write emails as well. So,  if I go up to Copilot and click on it, it's going   to open it up inside Microsoft Outlook. Now, this  is connected through all your accounts. So even at   the beginning when I was logged into Microsoft 365  copilot everything I would do in there. If I click   open na navigation panel all the same things will  be in here. So it's going to follow you. So what   can you do with this? Well you can get it to do a  thing like write an email for you. So I could go   ahead and ask it right here. I could type what I'd  want or maybe I have one of the suggestions here.    So let's say this right here we let's say we're  going to be out of the office. It puts it in here.    So, it's going to say draft a brief out of the  office mees message for my upcoming vacation.    And we'll just leave it here. And we're just going  to send it. So, it's going to go ahead and write   this for me so I can make any changes to this  as well. Let's stretch this out a bit so we can   see it a little bit better. So, we can see here  that it wrote out a message that I can use here.    And it actually tells me how to even set this  up in Outlook. so I could follow through these   instructions. So, you can ask Copilot for help.   Now, when using the free version, what you'll want   to do because this is a little different than the  paid for version is you can go ahead and copy this   information from here. I'm going to go C. We can  start a new email and then we can go and put this   in here. So, there was actually a subject line. I  could go ahead and take this and add the subject.    So you could set it up this way, but it's nice to  be able to have this right inside your Outlook so   you can still ask it questions. You just are going  to have to go and copy and paste it across. Email

signature is something you might want to set up.   So if I click new, now this is an email signature.    As soon as I click new email, this information  at the bottom was placed in. So, it could be the   person's name, their title, their links, whether  it be social or website, or even a quote that you   could have at the very bottom. This is very quick  to set up. Let me show you how you can do this.    Let's go up to settings and I'm going to go to my  accounts. And you're going to see under accounts,   we have signatures right here. I'm going to  go ahead stretch this out so we can see this   a little bit better. The first thing is I need to  give this signature a name. And for this purpose,   I'm going to call this demo. This is where we're  going to type out the information. So, I'm just   going to paste the information in. So, I have all  these different things with the graphics here and   the quote. I could go ahead now if I wanted to.   If I go ahead and take this just like before,   I can go and insert a hyperlink. So, maybe it's  going to be the same link and I'll just paste it   right in here. So now this will become a link and  I can go through and make other adjustments. You   can see where I can insert pictures in line. When  you get everything the way you want, you can go   ahead at the very bottom and this is important.   You can say what to use for new messages. Well,   since I haven't saved this yet, it's not there.   So if I hit save, you can see demo is here. Now,   do I want it on replies? Usually I don't put it  on replies. I just do it for new messages only.    So now this is all saved. Let's exit out. Now when  I click on new message, notice right here that   information is already at the bottom. So I don't  have to go through and type it each time. Let's

talk about receiving emails. Now in this case,  I just received one to my earlier email that I   received. The first thing that you notice is how  it's highlighted with the color. This is because   it's unread and it's going to look different  than a red one. So, if I go here and hover over,   notice here, I could mark this as red or as soon  as I click on it, it's going to unopen. It's going   to change as run red. But I can also go back. And  we have a few other options here. I could flag   this message. So, if this is important, I could  flag it. And I'll come back to where this goes   in a moment. And we can also pin it. So, we can  keep this message at the top of your folder. So,   if I pin it, it's always going to stay here.   So maybe you get this email, they're like,   "Okay, I want to remember to come back to this  later. " If I pin it, it will be right here. And   I can also delete it. But let's go ahead and  open this email up. Now, as soon as I open up,   you can see that it is flagged from when I  clicked on it. And I can do some quick things.    I could go ahead and reply to the one person  who sent this. I could reply all to everybody,   so even the CC people. And I can forward it if I  click here. If I scroll down towards the bottom,   you're going to notice that I can do it here as  well. If I click reply, it will open up the place   that we can start our new email. And right away,  as soon as I did that, we have drafts starting.    And notice if you don't want to send it right  away, you can schedule send. So, if I click   schedule send, we can go ahead and pick a time  when we can schedule it so we get it sent exactly   when we want. Let's get some help from co-pilot  now. Maybe to write this message. Let's click

on co-pilot. And I probably wanted to summarize  and reply. And they already have that suggested   one right here. So, I'm going to use it. And this  looks fine. So, I'll send this away. All right. I   can see they gave me a quick summary here. So, I  can look through that and it says, "Let's start   by crafting your first reply. " Um, notice right  away it's didn't write it yet. How do I want to   reply? Um, I'm going to say this one. I want the  tone to be professional yet approachable. Let's   send this. Okay, let's see what they came up with.   They have another question here. Would you like   to acknowledge Jaime's appreciation? Yes, I will  do this. And I you can see I focus on confirming   the task list in the video. Let's go ahead and do  this. And I'm going to say yes, I have the video   link. And here's the last question. I'm going to  ask Jamie for the details on the marketing task   and send that. And now I have this email. And it's  always important to read through these emails that   AI generate to make sure that it is correct or  if there's any changes. So I can see, hi Jamie,   thanks for your message. I'm glad the timeline was  helpful. And insert video link. Looking forward to   your input. So now at this point I could go ahead  and take this information. I could go C. Go over   here and paste it in. Do the same thing like  I showed you before. Ctrl C here. And I don't   have to put this the subject line in here because  this time it's just going to be a reply. I put the   link if I want to, but I'm just going to go ahead  and click send now. Now it looks like I received   a response to the one I sent. And what I want to  point out now is I'm only seeing one email here,   but if I expand this, you're going to see the  thread of what is happening between the emails   that were sent back and forth. Now, let's talk a  little bit about organization. More specifically,

how to make folders and then put your emails  in there so you can have a clean inbox. Now,   if you want to make a new folder, if I hover over  my email here, I can click these three little dots   here. And notice there's new folder. And I'm just  going to go ahead and click this. And I'm going   to just give it a name of Jamie because I'm going  to put these emails in here. As soon as you get   the name you want, hit save. Notice I have a new  folder here. What I could do is take this right   here and move this over into this folder. Now,  it's not in my inbox anymore, but I still have   it and I have it organized in this folder. And  you can also make subfolders and folders. So,   if I click these three little dots, you can see  all the different things I can do. This is where   I could create a subfolder. And something I like  to do is change the colors just so these folders   stand out. So, maybe I want this one pink. And  as soon as I do that, notice that folder here.    So you could change the color of the different  folders that you create. Probably noticed there's

a focused and other. I just switched accounts here  because I knew this account had a lot more of the   other in it. So the focused are going to be the  important emails and the other could be junk or   just things probably not that important that you  can check at a different time that doesn't draw   your focus away from. But you can change this  if you go to view and then go to view settings.    Notice right here, sort messages into focused  and others. If I go ahead and click don't sort   my messages, then everything will be put under  one. Another important thing that Outlook does,

it lets you manage people. And if we go over to  the side where I was earlier, if I click on this,   this is where we can create new contacts. So,  if I drop down, you'll notice new contact or new   contact list. If I just click it, it's just going  to open up. And all we need to do is go through,   put the person's name, last name, email address,  phone numbers, all the details you want from that   person. You can even click to add an image. Then  this will make it easy to add when you're emailing   them to quickly start typing in their email and  then it's just going to pop open. The other thing   you can do is import. So, if you were going to go  to import contacts and you have a big CSV list,   if I go click import, then you'll see that  you can upload your CSV file with all these   uh contacts on it and it will go right  into Outlook. And you can also export. So,

you if you have a large uh file of contacts  here, you can export your contacts and it will   make that list. Remember earlier I talked about a  flagged email? I want to show you where this goes   now. So in this example I flagged it. If I go over  to the side this time I'm going to go to to-do   and I have flagged emails. So this gives a great  way and this is the email here too. If you have   an important email that you need to reply to or  maybe add a reminder to, add a due date, you can   see the emails right here to it as well. I can hit  open and I can see the actual email. So, this is   a great way not to forget about emails. And I'll  get more into using the to-do here. And you can   also notice up top that you have access to to-do  here as well. And in my next video, I'll get into   more using Calendar and To-Do to show you how you  can keep every everything organized even better.

And that's how you get started with Microsoft  Outlook, including that powerful Copilot chat   assistant that's already built into your account.   I hope this guide helped you feel more confident   about managing your inbox. The other major part  of Outlook is the calendar, which I'll be covering   in my next full tutorial. Hit that subscribe  button so you'll be the first to see it. Thanks   for watching this time on Teachers Tech. I'll see  you next week with more tech tips and tutorials.