Forum Discussion
My Templates in New Outlook and Web Explained
As of October 10, 2023, Microsoft rolled out a new update to New Outlook and Web versions. The new update fixed the disappearing act of My Templates Icon and entries for most users. The My Templates icon appears in two tab areas when composing an email: Message and Options tabs.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Missing Templates in Shared Mailboxes OWA / New Outlook
- Outlook Apps Impacted: New, Web, and Outlook.com
- Microsoft is aware of the My Template issue and is currently investigating.
For further troubleshooting, it is recommended to contact Support and request a support engineer who can connect remotely. The engineer may need to involve the backend team and may ask for your public IP address or collect logs from your Outlook.
Missing MyTemplates in Personal Mailbox: Try the following:
- Outlook Apps Impacted: New, Web, and Outlook.com
- Update to the latest version of New Outlook. (This solution worked for me.)
- Click on Get add-in; under Admin-managed, make sure My Templates has been added. (See image.)
Important: Also, confirm with your organization IT Admin, that My Template is enabled on the backend.
- If you plan to contact your IT Admin or Microsoft support, complete the following tests for they will ask for it.
- Open a Private Edge browser and confirm behavior is the same.
- Open OWA in a different browser (Chrome) and capture the behavior.
- Provide MS Support team with Outlook Version. (View Tab > View Settings > In Search bar, type Version)
PS: I searched through many reliable resources, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any solution. However, I came across numerous users who reported issues with My Templates. If you find this information helpful, you can bookmark this thread. I will continue to keep an eye out for any updates or solutions related to this issue. Additionally, if you do happen to find a solution, please do share it.
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More My Template Information
The 32 kb per template size limit still exists, but now with an error message when exceeded.
When to use My Templates
- Yes, Outlook for Windows Quick Parts is more powerful than My Templates. My Templates are ideal for short text-only content, which is very similar to text prediction. Adding images and tables to My Template may exceed its limits.
Microsoft Future Development Plans
- I am unsure if Microsoft plans to enhance this feature, but it is a popular user request (including me.)
- Please vote for increasing My Templates size limits to support images and table. You can add how you use My Templates in the comments in the feedback portal.
Workaround for My Templates
When you save a message in drafts, you can reuse it later instead of rewriting it from scratch.
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If you find this information helpful, please mark it as the best answer or like it, which will assist others.
/Teresa
#traccreations4e
27 Replies
Hello,
We have the same kind of problem here with the new Outlook. Is there any advancement on the subject or any link where we could see how it goes ?
Thanks for your help !
My Template functionality has not changed for now. Please vote to increase the size limit for my templates. The link is in the original post.
However, you can open existing Classic Outlook Templates in New Outlook. Watch this short video: https://youtu.be/6HoYiraeHXk?si=A2NAFHEmFGbj-iSO
#traccreations4e 11/29/2024.
I haven't been able to access templates on outlook.office.com for some time, so I use signatures instead. The signatures editor is much better than templates, and I think you can insert more than 32k? I have inserted large photos into signatures (used as templates) and it doesn't object to the size of the template, but that might be because it only stores a link to the photo, maybe.
If they do re-introduce templates, I hope it has an editor as good as the signature editor.Best regards
Paul
PaulCollins @Teresa_Cyrus
A problem with the 'signature as template' workaround is that if you have to add/change any text anywhere except before the signature blurb you have no spell check functionality (nor will it even show you that a word is misspelled) nor any other Right-click menu functions within the signature blurb.
to get around this you could insert the sig blurb and then hightlight and CTRL-X the text you will be editing and then CTRL-V to the top line of the message you are composing...
starts to get tedious at best...
Agreed. I rarely use the My Template feature. I am unable to save lengthy content.
Quick Part and Template availability is on the roadmap for 2025.
If you still have access to classic, you can open existing classic templates in New Outlook Windows.
Good call Paul! I didn't use Templates a ton, but did use them for repetitive tasks, such as password resets and such. The signatures trick accomplishes practically the same thing, so thank you for sharing that.
Dave
I used to have complete functionality of Mytemlates, and now when I try to add a new one, no matter how many characters, it says it is too large. Make it smaller. I even tried using a single word, and it still gives the same message: too large and smaller.
Wow, this is a great workaround. I will pass this on to others and give your feedback to Microsoft.
The power of sharing. Thanks.
/Teresa
Hi Teresa_Cyrus ,
We never used the templates with the old Outlook; we customised our own in Word with social media links and an image at the bottom (which would change with the seasons) and pasted this in the signature editor without fail; it worked as a charm for all accounts.
However, with the new Outlook, we wasted a day trying to figure out how to get the mail accounts working, trying to transfer the signatures. No result, and frustrated with hardly any information available, we went back to the old format using the signature editor again.
The video pasted in the thread explains how to access Outlook templates in the new Outlook. What about templates made in the signature editor? So far, they do not transfer or sync in New Outlook.
Cheers,
Rong Hua Ching
Teresa_Cyrus OK, I guess I am lost... I am trying the help, and other searches... all I want to do is create some templates, and be able to select from them to use in emails... I remember when Office was usable.. is there any help available? I can't find it anywhere.
New Outlook does not have the template or Quick Parts functionality like classic Outlook.
I am not sure if it is on the backlog. In the meantime, when you are in New Outlook, remember you can open classic too.
I know this is not ideal.
A potential "workaround" for some of us Outlook on the Web users for the time being, which by no means is ideal (in my opinion) and may not work well for your situation, but may work depending on your case:
You can add your shared mailbox to your primary mailbox (which should, as of posting, still allow you to access the MyTemplates add-in). See here for instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/open-and-use-a-shared-mailbox-in-outlook-on-the-web-98b5a90d-4e38-415d-a030-f09a4cd28207
*Some notes from my experience to be aware of before attempting:
Each time you reply to an email, you must change the From address (to the shared email), and you'll have to add the signature, if you use a different signature for replies from your shared mailbox. Otherwise, the reply will be from your own email with your own signature, not that of the shared mailbox
When you reply to an email from the shared mailbox via your primary mailbox, the reply is stored in your own sent items folder, not that of the shared mailbox—this may cause confusion for your coworkers as they won't see your reply or in the future can't refer back to your reply if needed
Replies to emails sent from the shared address in your primary mailbox will show up in the shared mailbox as new emails. Replies to all emails in the shared mailbox will be shown as separate emails when viewed from your primary mailbox, not nested under the original email of which the reply was for
If you make use of categories or labels in your shared mailbox, they won't coincide with the shared mailbox
If MyTemplates breaks in our primary mailboxes again, this "workaround" will be void lol
Should you want to attempt this, try a few test emails to see how the experience will be before sharing this as advice with your coworkers who might get confused by the additional steps required
If those considerations still make this "workaround" worth it to you, then once you have added the shared mailbox into your primary mailbox, on the left sidebar open whichever folder under the shared mailbox emails you need to reply to will be stored (usually the inbox).
Select the email you wish to reply to from the appropriate shared mailbox folder. Or compose a new email.
Change the From address to the shared email. The first time, you may have to manually add it ... click the From field and Change address, then type and select the shared email address. If the From field does not show, go to your options and select Show from.
Update the signature. If needed, add your shared email's signature to your saved signatures so that you can easily add it to email replies in the future.
Open the MyTempltes add-in and, as you would have in the past, select the template you wish to fill into the email. You may first have to add all the templates into the add-in. You may first need to go into the Get Add-ins icon and select/add the MyTemplates add-in to your primary mailbox.
Compose the email as desired.
Double check that the From address is the shared email, and that the signature appears as desired.
Send the email.
Hopefully, this may serve useful for some of you who have simple situations with your shared mailboxes and don't need your replies to be visible to or stored in the shared mailbox itself. BUT BETTER YET, LETS HOPE MICROSOFT FIXES MYTEMPLATES IN SHARED MAILBOXES FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!
- All my saved Templates in OWA keep disappearing, I presume this is a common issue. I will use the draft feature as suggested until this is resolved. Another point I believe should be raised is when you have multiple templates saved, it doesn't try to show all the template text in the sidebar, rather it only has a short description of a dozen characters or title.
Joshua65 Yep - they continue to have issues with My Templates. The Shared Mailbox issue what "was" fixed is still broken to an extent. In some cases - the My Templates button isn't available to use, but shows up under Add-ins as already installed, or, not installed but when clicking "Add" you get ErrorAccessDenied. In other instances, users ARE getting My Templates to show up in their Shared Mailbox, but, the problem is - they're only seeing their own mailbox templates & not the templates that should be specific to the Shared Mailbox. Its a mess.
Teresa_Cyrus - This is not helpful. Several users are reporting that their templates are gone and nowhere to be found in Outlook on the Web (O365, not outlook.com). They are enabled and published in the Admin Managed Add-ins. Just not showing for users in their personal mailboxes nor in the shared mailboxes. Please advise.
Teresa_Cyrus Why do you say this is a "known issue"? A "known issue" will normally have an active Service Health advisory, or, some sort of bug report. Are you going by what a Microsoft engineer told you for an open case? I've experienced multiple issues with "My Templates" in an enterprirse environment over the last year and had to open cases for each one. They only properly acknolwedged & fixed one issue - and that was with My Templates no longer being accessible in Shared Mailboxes. They JUST got that fix rolled out (see EX682081). Every other case either "magically" fixed itself eventually, or, in the case of the add-in being availble & the saved templates disappearing - the users were just out of luck & had to recreate them all from scratch. Additionally, for my users having issues with My Templates today - they're accessible just fine through the Outlook desktop app - but not Outlook on the web. Its an admin managed add-in, so there isn't anything we administrators can really do. Its always a Microsoft issue that they need to identify & fix.
- Agreed
- Except it doesnt'... MyTemplates simply doesn't show up anywhere for several accounts, others it does (OWA Outlook.com). There is no removing/adding (I mean there is, but doesnt' change anything).
Here is the latest version as of Oct. 10th.
You have Microsoft Outlook Version 1.2023.1004.400 (Production).
Client Version is 20230922005.26 .
Check your version: View | View Settings | General | About Outlook.
- Huh? this isn't an Outlook issue, it's an Outlook.com issue.
