Top Microsoft Outlook Add-Ins to Enhance Your Email Experience

Whether you use Microsoft Outlook casually or for work; we can agree it is challenging to manage emails. While Outlook is already a powerful email client, there are multiple add-ins available to enhance its use for everyday tasks. Here, I have compiled a list of top add-ins to boost your productivity and help with management, collaboration, organization, communication, and integration with CRM systems.

1. Boomerang for Outlook: Best for Email Delays

Although Outlook already allows email scheduling, Boomerang takes that to a whole new level. It’s like having a personal assistant that schedules your emails, pauses your inboxes when you need to focus, and sets reminders for those follow-ups that often slip your mind.

Beyond this, you can also insert tracking links to know when your emails have been opened. The flexibility to delay when your emails are sent ensures it arrives at the opportune time for recipients. Boomerang is super handy for multi-time zone project management.

2. Zoom for Outlook Virtual Meetings

Integrating Zoom into your Outlook is a no-brainer as it’s the go-to app for most companies’ virtual meetings. The Zoom plugin or add-in allows you to schedule, join, or add meeting links to the list of events on your Outlook Calendar. A quick copy and paste to insert a URL link and dial in the information.

The flexibility of merging Zoom with Outlook cuts down on the stress of constantly setting up virtual meetings and reduces communication to just a few clicks. Zoom’s extensive features make it a perfect outlook add-in for casual or work use.

3. FindTime: Best for Meeting Scheduling

Sometimes, it’s a nightmare to find a suitable time for meetings. Without proper tools, it can quickly become a ping-pong of emails, leading to cluttering. Hence, FindTime helps to cut through all these hassles.

It’s an Outlook add-in that allows you to propose several meeting times in your email, allowing people to vote on what works best for them. Thus, giving you a pool of results to choose the most opportune time for everyone.

4. Microsoft Teams Outlook Add-In: Hub for Teamwork

Why leave Outlook when you can bring the hub of teamwork and collaboration? Integrating Microsoft Teams to Outlook allows you to schedule and hop on meetings without breaking a sweat.

Create, share, and collaborate on documents with the Teams add-in and make Outlook your hub for team collaboration. Since they both share the Microsoft ecosystem, integration is simple, fast, and reliable.

5. Microsoft Translator for Outlook

With the Microsoft Translator add-in for Outlook, communication is without borders. This add-in breaks every language barrier by translating emails on the fly.

There’s also a fail proof option to manually translate if the automatic option fails. If you work with an international team or clients, integrating this will make an instant impact on your communication. 

6. DocuSign for Outlook: Best for E-signature

Reducing carbon footprint is a goal for most companies and DocuSign integration helps with that. Replace the paper trail with e-signatures from your email. Add a signature to documents in Outlook legally and securely with your mouse cursor.

Through this integration, you can also save signed documents to OneDrive. Although, this is reserved for those who connect DocuSign accounts with Office365.

7. Salesforce: Best for CRM

Salesforce is one of the best CRM tools for sales experts and customer support teams. Integrating Salesforce into Outlook is a game changer as it provides real-time CRM data updates.

This Microsoft Outlook add-in further eases customer relationship management by ensuring all information is accessible in one place. Hence, preventing you from missing out on leads or actions while juggling multiple interactions.

8. Evernote for Outlook

Evernote is one of the best apps for organization, tagging, journaling, and creating notebooks. Its integration into Outlook is a godsend for those who lose crucial email information to cluttering.

Evernote lets you use Outlook categories to organize email. You save emails directly into Evernote notebooks with tags, making them easy to retrieve later. It’s ideal for project managers and researchers, although anyone battling with email cluttering will also find it handy.

9. Spell Check with Grammarly for Outlook

Grammarly is an all-you-can-eat buffet for writing. A powerful AI assistant that ensures accurate and error-free communication. Integrating Grammarly with Outlook guarantees real-time monitoring of your spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

In addition, the AI feature suggests adjustments in style and tone to improve professionalism. Say goodbye to those glaring typos and complex sentences in your emails; Grammarly ensures an easy, consistent, and refined tone. It’s perfect for non-native speakers.

10. Trello for Outlook Team Collaboration

Bridge the gap between project management and communication with Trello for Outlook. You can turn emails into tasks and Trello cards or integrate Trello boards’ calendars with Outlook.

Either way, you can access task updates –who’s working on what and their progress, without leaving Outlook, making it ideal for project managers.

So, there you have it – top Microsoft add-ins that can improvee how you manage, organize, and collaborate on your Microsoft Outlook. Each is tailored to improve an aspect of your day-to-day activities and transform your Outlook into a dynamic powerhouse for productivity. If you are a Microsoft OneNote fan, take a glance at our selected useful add-ins for OneNote.

Image credit: Unsplash and all screenshots by Henderson Jayden Harper.