Outlook Quick Parts and Email Templates: Stop Typing the Same Emails in 2026

If you find yourself typing the same phrases, introductions, disclaimers, or entire paragraphs in Outlook day after day, you are spending time that could easily be saved. Microsoft Outlook's Quick Parts feature — and its closely related Email Templates tool — gives you a reusable library of text blocks and full message drafts that you can insert with a couple of clicks. In 2026, with Copilot integration making smart suggestions and the new Outlook for Windows now the standard, it has never been easier to build a library of time-saving email content.

What Are Outlook Quick Parts?

Quick Parts are saved blocks of text (and formatting) that you store in Outlook's Building Blocks gallery. Once saved, you can insert any Quick Part into any email with just a few keystrokes — no copying and pasting from old messages required. Quick Parts can contain:

Standard introductions and sign-offs

Legal disclaimers and compliance language

Meeting request boilerplate

Product descriptions and pricing notes

Customer service response templates

Formatted tables, bullet lists, and any richly formatted content

How to Create a Quick Part in Outlook (Classic and New Outlook)

Creating a Quick Part takes about 30 seconds:

Open a new email compose window in Outlook.

Type the text (or paste the content) you want to save as a Quick Part. Apply any formatting — bold, colour, bullet points — that you want preserved.

Select all the content you want to save.

On the Insert tab, click Quick Parts > Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.

In the Create New Building Block dialog, give the Quick Part a descriptive Name (e.g., 'Legal Disclaimer' or 'Meeting Request Intro').

Optionally, choose a Category to organise it (e.g., 'Customer Service', 'Sales', 'Legal').

Click OK. Your Quick Part is now saved.

How to Insert a Quick Part into an Email

Inserting a saved Quick Part is even faster than creating one. There are two methods:

Method 1 — Ribbon:

In a compose window, go to Insert > Quick Parts. Your saved gallery appears as a dropdown. Click the block you want to insert.

Method 2 — Autocomplete shortcut:

Type the first few characters of the Quick Part name and press F3. Outlook inserts the full content automatically. This is the fastest method for power users — with a memorable name, inserting a Quick Part becomes a sub-second action.

Outlook Email Templates: Full Message Reuse

While Quick Parts save fragments of content, Outlook Email Templates save entire email messages — complete with subject line, recipients, body text, and attachments. Templates are ideal for recurring emails you send regularly, such as weekly status updates, project kick-off messages, or customer onboarding emails.

How to Create an Email Template in Outlook

Compose a new email with the full subject line, body, and any standard recipients you want to reuse.

Click File > Save As.

In the Save As dialog, change the Save as type dropdown to Outlook Template (*.oft).

Name the file descriptively and click Save. Outlook saves it to your Templates folder.

To use the template, go to New Items > More Items > Choose Form. In the Look In dropdown, select User Templates in File System, select your template, and click Open. A new message window appears with all your template content pre-filled, ready to personalise and send.

My Templates: The Quick Access Alternative

For a simpler approach, Outlook includes the My Templates add-in (visible in the compose window sidebar). My Templates stores shorter text snippets directly in the cloud and syncs across devices — ideal for short responses and standard phrases. To access it, open a compose window and look for the Templates icon in the bottom toolbar or the right sidebar.

Click the plus icon in My Templates to save a new snippet. These sync to all your Outlook devices automatically, which makes them more convenient than Quick Parts for people who work across multiple computers.

Copilot + Templates: The 2026 Upgrade

In 2026, Microsoft 365 Copilot adds an intelligent layer on top of both Quick Parts and templates. When composing an email, Copilot can suggest relevant Quick Parts based on the email's context. For example, if you are writing a follow-up after a customer meeting, Copilot may suggest your saved follow-up boilerplate or your standard pricing summary Quick Part.

Copilot can also help you write new templates from scratch. Simply describe what the template should say in the Copilot Draft prompt (e.g., 'Write a polite follow-up email after a sales demo with a call-to-action for a second meeting') and Copilot produces a high-quality draft that you can save directly as a template.

Quick Parts vs My Templates vs Email Templates: Which to Use

Quick Parts: Best for rich formatted content (tables, styled text, multi-paragraph blocks) used in a single Outlook installation.

My Templates: Best for short plain-text snippets that you need across multiple devices.

Email Templates (.oft): Best for full recurring emails with consistent subject lines, recipients, and body content.

Conclusion: Build Your Personal Email Library

Outlook Quick Parts and email templates are among the most underused productivity features in Microsoft 365. If you spend even 5 minutes a day writing repetitive email content, building a small library of reusable blocks will pay back that investment within days.

Start today: identify the three emails you write most often, turn them into templates, and experience how much smoother your inbox workflow becomes. In 2026, between Copilot suggestions and your own saved blocks, you should rarely need to type the same thing twice.

For more Outlook productivity tips and Microsoft 365 tutorials, visit officelearner.net.