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Prevent Reply All option in Outlook

You can prevent users from accidentally using the Reply All option in Outlook and sending unnecessary emails to a group of recipients. Users can be distracted and waste a lot of time receiving and reading unimportant emails. So it’s best to use the Reply All only if needed. In this article, we will show three methods to prevent the Reply All option in your email Outlook.

Disable Reply All option for users

When you receive an email in Outlook, you can choose the option to:

  1. Forward
  2. Reply
  3. Reply All

The Reply All option in Outlook allows the user to reply to an email sent to a group of recipients. If one of the recipients decides to use the Reply All option in Outlook, it will send the reply message to all the recipients in that email. However, the Reply All option can be problematic if the user only meant to send the message to a single recipient.

Sending a Reply All email can increase clutter (unwanted mail) and unnecessary mail flow, meaning the other recipients in the list will also receive the email without any benefit. It can waste precious time for the other recipients because they don’t need to read this message.

The Reply All option can also share secret information you don’t want other recipients to read. This will violate the user’s data privacy. Therefore, we want to show you three ways to prevent users from clicking the Reply All option in their email:

  • Use Bcc field
  • Create Outlook form
  • Create distribution group

1. Prevent Reply All option using Bcc

When you normally send an email to a group, you type the recipients in the To field. It means the recipients can see which others are included in the email.

Therefore, we will use the BCC field, which stands for Blind Carbon Copy. It means that the destination recipient can’t see the other recipients. The destination recipient will only be able to see the email address of the sender.

How to use the Bcc field

We want to send an email to a group of recipients without letting the recipients see which others are included in the email.

How to find the Bcc field in Outlook on the web (OWA):

  1. Click New email
Prevent Reply All option new email OWA
  1. Click Bcc on the right

It will automatically add the Bcc field in the new mail.

Prevent Reply All option add Bcc field OWA

If you always want to include the Bcc in OWA, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings
  2. Click Email > Compose and reply
  3. Scroll down to Message format
  4. Select Always show Bcc
  5. Click Save
Prevent Reply All option always show Bcc field OWA

How to add Bcc field in the Outlook app:

  1. Click New Email
  2. Click Options > Bcc

It will automatically add the Bcc field in the new mail.

Prevent Reply All option add Bcc field Outlook

Disable Reply All option with Bcc field

In our example, we want to send an email from Stephen.Hunter@m365info.com to a couple of recipients.

You need to add the recipients in the Bcc field, as shown in the below example.

  1. Open new email
  2. Type recipients in the Bcc field
  3. Type Subject and some content
  4. Click Send
Prevent Reply All option using Bcc field in Outlook
  1. Open the mail of one of the recipients
  2. The result is that you can’t see the other recipients
Prevent Reply All option using Bcc no recipients Outlook
  1. Click the Reply All button
  2. Verify that it automatically inserts the sender and not all the other recipients in the To field
Prevent Reply All option using Bcc field to sender Outlook

You did prevent using the Reply All option in Outlook. In the next step, we will look at another method to prevent the Reply All option.

2. Prevent Reply All option with Outlook form

We want to create a customized Outlook form and disable the Reply All option in that specific form.

Add developer option in Outlook ribbon

First, we need to customize the ribbon in Outlook and the new tab Developer.

  1. Log into your Outlook app
  2. Right-click the ribbon > Select Customize Ribbon (Or go to File > Options)
Customize the ribbon

The Outlook options window opens.

  1. Click Customize Ribbon
  2. Select Developer
  3. Click OK
Customize ribbon Add Developer tab

The new tab Developer is added to the ribbon in Outlook.

Create an Outlook form

In the previous step, you added the new tab Developer in your ribbon, which doesn’t appear by default. Now that it’s set, we can create an Outlook form.

Time needed: 15 minutes

How to create an Outlook form:

  1. Log into your Outlook app

    Open your Outlook app

  2. Go to Developer tab

    Click Design a Form

    Prevent Reply All Outlook create design form

  3. The Design Form window opens

    Select Message
    Click Open

    Prevent Reply All Outlook open design form message

  4. Click on (Actions) tab

    Click on Actions

    Prevent Reply All Outlook select Actions tab

  5. Under Actions

    Double-click the line Reply to All

    Prevent Reply All Outlook select (Actions) Reply to All

  6. From Action Properties

    Clear the checkbox Enabled
    Click OK

    Prevent Reply All Outlook clear enabled OK

  7. Go to (Properties) tab

    Select Send form definition with item
    Click OK

    Prevent Reply All Outlook properties send form definition with item

  8. Publish the Form

    Click Publish > Publish Form

    Prevent Reply All Outlook publish form

  9. Name the Form

    Select Personal Forms Library
    Create Display and Form name
    Click Publish

    Prevent Reply All Outlook save publish form

  10. Close the Form

    Click Yes to save the changes

    Prevent Reply All Outlook save form changes

Disable Reply All option with Outlook form

We want to send a new email with the customized Outlook form we created in the previous step.

Follow the steps below to send an email using Outlook form:

  1. Go to the Home tab in your Outlook app
  2. Click New Items
  3. Select More Items > Choose Form
New items Outlook Choose Form
  1. Select Personal Forms Library
  2. Click your Outlook form (Template without Reply All option)
  3. Click Open
  1. The new email window appears
  2. Type the recipients in the To field
  3. Type a Subject and some content
  4. Click Send
  1. Go to the inbox of one of the recipients, Amanda.Hansen@m365info.com
  2. Click on the Reply All
  3. Click OK on the warning prompt

It means that you can’t use the Reply All option anymore.

  1. Open the email
  2. Verify that the Reply All option is greyed out

3. Prevent Reply All option using Distribution group

For this method, you need to create a distribution group with a list of recipients. Unlike a Microsoft 365 group, the distribution group allows you to restrict which users can send messages to the group. It means that no other recipients are allowed to reply besides the users you assign.

In our example, we have the following situation:

  • Amanda is the manager of the sales department
  • Amanda needs to send emails to the sales department in the organization
  • We want to prevent the sales department employees from using the Reply All option to Amanda’s emails

Therefore we need to create a new distribution group with all employees of the sales department. Then, we need to specify Amanda as the only sender to this group, which will disable the other recipients from using the Reply All option.

Create new distribution group

How to create a new distribution group:

  1. Sign in to Exchange admin center
  2. Go to Recipients > Groups
  3. Click Distribution list
  4. Click Add a group
Create new distribution group
  1. Select Distribution
  2. Click Next
Create new distribution group
  1. Type the Name Sales Employees
  2. Click Next
Create new distribution group
  1. Click Assign owners
  2. Add the owners (Admin)
  3. Click Next
Create new distribution group
  1. Click Add members
  2. Add the members
  3. Click Next
Create new distribution group
  1. Type the email address
  2. Select Closed under Joining the group
  3. Select Closed under Leaving the group
  4. Click Next
Create new distribution group
  1. Click Create group
Review and finish adding distribution group
  1. Click Close
New distribution group created

You created a new distribution group, Sales Employees. The next step is to restrict who can send messages to the distribution group. In our example, we will only allow a single user to email the group.

  1. Click on the distribution group from the list
Created new distribution group in list
  1. Go to the Settings tab
  2. Click Edit delivery management
Edit delivery management distribution group
  1. Search for the sender
  2. Select the specified sender (Amanda Hansen)
  3. Click Save changes
Search and select specified sender in distribution group

The distribution group is now set up with the correct configuration. In the next step, we will test it out.

Disable Reply All option with distribution group

We want to send a new email from (Amanda.Hansen@m365info.com) to the distribution group (Sales.Employees@m365info.com) we created in the previous step.

How to send an email to a distribution group:

  1. The sender you assigned will create a new email
  2. Select the distribution group in the To field
  3. Type a subject and some content
  4. Send the email
Prevent Reply All option to distribution group send test mail
  1. Go to the inbox of one of the recipients, David.Kent@m365info.com
  2. Click on Reply All
  3. The below warning appears: You don’t have permission to send to the distribution group
Prevent Reply All option no permission to send to distribution group
  1. When the recipient clicks on Reply, it will automatically put the sender of the mail (Amanda)

The result is that none of the recipients in the distribution group can use the Reply All option.

Prevent Reply All option to distribution group only to sender

That’s it!

Read more: Send email with Microsoft Graph PowerShell »

Conclusion

You learned how to prevent the Reply All option in Outlook. These methods are the Bcc field, creating an Outlook form, and distribution group. The Bcc method is the easiest method that most will use. Creating an Outlook form is a one-time setup, and you can keep using it when sending a new email. The last method is to create a distribution group where you assign which users can send and Reply All in that group, which will disable the other recipients from using the Reply All option.

Did you enjoy this article? You may also like Configure Catch all Mailbox in Microsoft 365. Don’t forget to follow us and share this article.

o365info Team

o365info Team

This article was written by our team of experienced IT architects, consultants, and engineers.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. I have done with via developer and it works well. However, I can do reply to all on android email client. How can I prevent also on mobiles apps for same emails?

  2. You can also set a Moderator Approval on distribution lists, so a senior member of staff has to approve the message before it is sent out.

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