How to Create Email Templates in Outlook (All Versions)

You found a guide, followed step two, and the button wasn't there. That is not your fault. Outlook now ships two entirely different template features under names so similar that Microsoft had to publish a comparison table to keep them apart, and which one you get depends on which one you opened this morning.

This guide sorts that out first, then walks the exact click path for new Outlook, classic, Outlook on the web, and Mac. You'll also get the two things Microsoft's documentation leaves out: why the button disappears, and where templates stop being worth relying on.

Quick reference: which one do you need?

Saving a whole email, recipients and attachments included, to send again? Use Mail Templates.

Saving a paragraph you paste into replies twenty times a week? Use the My Templates add-in.

On classic Outlook, and want a file you can email to a colleague? Save as an .oft file.

Both Mail Templates and My Templates need a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. Outlook.com free accounts do not get them.

Outlook Has Two Template Features, and Picking The Wrong One Wastes Your Afternoon

The distinction Microsoft draws is real, and it decides everything downstream. Mail Templates is a built-in feature that saves a complete email message. The My Templates add-in stores short reusable text snippets and nothing else.

That single difference explains the complaint we see most: someone saves a "template," reopens it, and the subject line and attachment are gone. They used the add-in. The add-in was never going to keep them. Per Microsoft's support documentation (updated 30 April 2026), here is the split:

What an Outlook Template Actually is (and what it saves)

An Outlook template is a message you save once and reuse whenever you need it. Instead of rewriting the same content, you insert the stored draft, tweak a few details, and hit send. That much has been true since the .oft file format shipped, and it is still the whole idea.

What has changed is where the file lives. In new Outlook for Windows, templates you create with Mail Templates save to the account you were composing from, and you can reach them from that account mailbox in Outlook on the web. Templates created with the My Templates add-in save to your primary mailbox instead, which is why they follow you across Windows, web, and Mac while Mail Templates sometimes don't.

Sales teams lean on templates in four shapes:

• Follow-ups after a discovery call, where only the recap paragraph changes.
• Support replies that answer the same objection in approved language.
• Project status updates sent to the same stakeholder list every Friday.
• Onboarding notes: welcome emails, kickoff invites, access instructions.

One correction worth making loudly, because we got this wrong in the previous version of this article: Outlook templates can absolutely store the subject line. Mail Templates saves it along with recipients and attachments. Only the My Templates add-in leaves it behind.

How to Create an Email Template in New Outlook for Windows

New Outlook gives you both features. Start with the one that matches what you're saving.

Using Mail Templates (saves the whole email)

1. From the Home ribbon, select New > Mail. Add everything you want stored: recipients, subject, body, attachments.
2. From the Message ribbon, select Mail template > Save email as template.
3. In the Save email as template dialog, type a name and select Save.
4. To find your saved templates later, open the Settings page and select Mail > Templates. They're listed by account.

Name templates by trigger, not by content. "Post-demo follow-up" beats "Template 3" when you're scanning a list of thirty at 4:55pm.

For sales outreach, keep the copy concise, informative, and easy to customize for each contact.

Using the My Templates add-in (saves a snippet)

1. From the Home ribbon, select New > Mail.
2. From the Message tab of the ribbon, select My Templates. A task pane opens on the right.
3. In the task pane, select +Template.
4. Enter a name in the Title field, then type the reusable text in the field below it.
5. Select Save. The new template appears in the My Templates task pane.

If My Templates isn't in the ribbon, skip ahead to the troubleshooting section. It's a known issue, not a you problem.

How to Create Email Templates in Classic Outlook for Windows

Classic Outlook keeps the original .oft workflow alongside the newer features, and the .oft file is still the only Outlook template you can email to a colleague as a file.

1. Open a new email and compose the message body exactly as you want it stored.
2. Select File > Save As.
3. In the Save as type dropdown, choose Outlook Template (*.oft).
4. Name the file and select Save.
5. To use it later: Home > New Items > More Items > Choose Form, then pick User Templates in File System from the Look In dropdown.

The Choose Form path is genuinely buried. If you use one .oft template daily, drag it onto your taskbar so a double-click opens a pre-filled draft.

How to Create a Template in Outlook on the web

Outlook on the web runs the same two features as new Outlook, and templates you saved in either place show up here.

1. Select New mail and compose your message.
2. For a full email: from the Message ribbon, select Mail template > Save email as template, name it, and select Save.
3. For a snippet: select My Templates from the ribbon, choose +Template, add a title and message body, then Save.
4. To manage what you've saved, open Settings > Mail > Templates.

This is the fastest way to check whether a template synced. If it's in the web app, it exists on the server. If it isn't, it was saved locally and only that machine has it.

How to Create an Email Template in Outlook for Mac

Mac works differently, and this is where most guides (including ours, previously) go wrong. Outlook for Mac has its own built-in template control that has nothing to do with the add-in.

Using the built-in Mac controls

1. Select the email message you want to use as a template.
2. Select File > Save As Template.
3. Give it a name, such as "Monthly Status".
4. Apply a tag if you want one. The choices include Red, Blue, Important, and Work.
5. Choose where to save it and select Save. The file ends in .emltpl.
6. To use it: File > New > Email From Template, pick the template, select Open, then add recipients and send.

Microsoft lists the requirements for the built-in Mac controls as a Microsoft 365 subscription and Outlook for Mac version 15.35 (170610) or later. If File > Save As Template isn't showing, check your version first. Full details are on the Microsoft support page for Outlook for Mac templates.

Using the My Templates add-in on Mac

Select New Mail, choose My Templates from the ribbon, select +Template, add a title and message, and Save. Two caveats Microsoft states plainly: the add-in only works with Microsoft Exchange accounts, and it isn't available in shared mailboxes opened in Outlook for Mac.

How to Edit an Existing Outlook Email Template

Need to swap a link or fix a typo? Editing takes seconds once you know which pane you're in.

Windows and web

1. Open a new email and click Insert > My Templates. The templates sidebar appears.
2. Find the template you want to change and hover over it. Click the pencil icon (Edit template).
3. Update the content in the pop-up editor. Make text, link, or formatting changes as needed.
4. Press Save. Your template is overwritten and ready to use immediately.

Before saving, verify the To field and any cc or bcc entries so the edited version does not preserve unintended addresses.

For Mail Templates, go to Settings > Mail > Templates instead, then edit the saved template from that list.

Save vs Save As

Outlook overwrites the original. There's no version history and no undo. If you need both the old and the new version, copy the content into a fresh template rather than editing the existing one.

Mac

• For a built-in template: open the .emltpl file, make your changes, then File > Save As Template again under the same name.
• For an add-in template: start a new message, open My Templates, click the template's three-dot menu, select Edit, revise, and Save.

If a teammate uses your template too, duplicate it before editing. Nobody enjoys discovering their pricing paragraph changed mid-send.

Stationery and Signature Templates: The Built-in Cousins Nobody Mentions

Two other built-in features overlap with templates and get confused for them constantly.

Stationery sets the default font, background, and spacing for every new message you compose. It's found in classic Outlook under File > Options > Mail > Stationery and Fonts. It formats messages; it doesn't store them. If you want consistent brand typography across a team, stationery is the tool, not templates.

Signature templates for Microsoft Outlook cover the block at the bottom: name, title, phone, disclaimer, logo. Signatures insert automatically on every send, which templates never do. Reach for a signature when the content is identical every time and for a template when it's identical most of the time.

Why the My Templates Add-in is Missing From Your Ribbon

This has a documented cause, and for most of 2026 it wasn't anything you did.

Microsoft tracked this as a known issue where the View Templates button vanished from the classic Outlook ribbon, My Templates disappeared from All Apps, and re-adding the add-in returned a "Something went wrong" error. According to Microsoft's known-issue page (last updated 3 April 2026), the cause was an Exchange Web Services deprecation update combined with an Exchange Online authentication change, which together blocked access to default add-ins. Microsoft rolled both changes back and closed the incident on 27 March 2026.

The issue was tracked three separate times: as EX1183224 in December 2025, EX1238375 in March 2026, and finally EX1255397. If your ribbon is still empty, there are two likely reasons:

• Your admin has EWS disabled. Microsoft's guidance is explicit that tenants with EWS turned off may still hit this. That's a conversation with IT, not a setting you can fix.
• Your organization has add-ins turned off entirely. Same conversation.

Before you escalate, check the simpler explanation: your account may not have a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft requires one for both Mail Templates and My Templates, and a free Outlook.com account will never show either.

Template Availability in Shared Mailboxes

Shared mailboxes behave in a way that catches out most sales teams. If you access a shared mailbox that hasn't been promoted to a full account, templates you create there are visible only to you. Other people with access to that mailbox cannot see or edit them.

Promote the shared mailbox to a full account and the behaviour flips: templates become viewable and editable by anyone with access, as long as they also open the mailbox in new Outlook and promote it themselves. Those templates then aren't available on other platforms or in new Outlook as a non-promoted account, even for the person who made them.

If your plan was "we'll share templates through the shared inbox," read that paragraph twice. It's the single most common reason team template projects quietly die.

What We Got Wrong About Outlook Templates

The previous version of this article, published in July 2025, told you Outlook templates don't store the subject line and that templates live inside every version of Outlook. Both statements were wrong, and we'd rather say so than quietly patch them.

Mail Templates store the subject line, the recipients, and the attachments. And templates need a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription; they are not in every version. Our Mac instructions were wrong too. We described the add-in path and skipped File > Save As Template entirely, which is the one Mac users actually want.

Three more mistakes we see constantly:

• Building the whole team workflow on the add-in. It stores plain text. Your carefully formatted proposal template will come back as a wall of text.
• Assuming a template synced because it appeared once. Check Outlook on the web. If it isn't there, it isn't on the server.
• Editing a shared template in place. There's no version history. Duplicate first.

Where Outlook Templates Stop Being Enough

Templates are handy, but they're not a silver bullet. Keep these constraints in mind before you build your entire workflow around them:

• No personalization at scale: you can swap names manually, but Outlook offers no merge fields that fill in data automatically.
• No easy sharing: templates live in each user's mailbox, which makes real-time collaboration and version control tricky. The shared mailbox rules above are the proof.
• Limited formatting and embeds: standard fonts and images work, yet you cannot embed videos, interactive demos, or rich media snippets.
• Zero engagement tracking: Outlook gives you no open or click insight, so you fly blind once the message goes out.
• No built-in automation: drip sequences, conditional follow-ups, and send-later rules require add-ons or complex rules.
• Mobile gap: the Outlook mobile app doesn't recognize .oft files or the My Templates add-in, so you're copy-pasting when you're on the go.

None of that is a reason to skip templates. It's a reason to know where the ceiling is.

The native tools are best for pre-designed content with limited variation. They are less suitable when the team needs a fully optimized campaign system, advanced tracking, or automated personalization.

How Cirrus Insight Fills the Gaps Outlook Templates Leave

Everything in that limitations list is a gap a sales productivity layer is built to close, and Cirrus Insight closes it inside Outlook rather than in another tab.

• Shareable template library: store, organize, and update templates in one place, then roll them out to the whole team. No shared mailbox promotion required.
• Merge fields from Salesforce: send personalized emails at scale using real CRM data instead of manually swapping names.
• Real-time email and attachment tracking: know when a recipient opens or clicks so you can follow up at the right moment.
• Automatic follow-ups and send-later: schedule sequences that keep deals moving while you're offline.
• Salesforce sync with no manual data entry: every email, meeting, and task logs to the right record automatically.

Ready to turn Outlook into a revenue engine? Start a free Cirrus Insight trial and see how much time you win back.

For teams comparing templates in a Word document with native mail tools, the practical difference is that Outlook can open content based on a template directly in the sending workflow.

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FAQs

How do I create an email template in Outlook?

In new Outlook, Outlook on the web, or Outlook.com: open a new mail, then from the Message ribbon select Mail template > Save email as template, name it, and select Save. In classic Outlook: compose your message, then File > Save As, choose Outlook Template (*.oft), and Save. On Mac: select the message, then File > Save As Template.

Where do I find templates in Outlook 365?

For Mail Templates, open the Settings page and select Mail > Templates. They're listed by account. For My Templates, open a new email and select My Templates from the Message ribbon to open the task pane. For classic .oft files, use Home > New Items > More Items > Choose Form, then select User Templates in File System.

Do Outlook templates save the subject line and attachments?

Mail Templates does. It saves recipients, subject, body, formatting, and attachments. The My Templates add-in does not: it stores plain text snippets with basic styling and nothing else. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason people think templates are broken.

Why is My Templates missing from my Outlook ribbon?

Microsoft tracked this as a known issue caused by an Exchange Web Services deprecation update and an Exchange Online authentication change. Both were rolled back, and the incident closed on 27 March 2026. If yours is still missing, your admin may have EWS or add-ins disabled, or your account may not have a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription.

Can I use templates on the Outlook mobile app?

No. The iOS and Android Outlook apps don't recognize .oft files or the My Templates add-in. You'll need to paste text manually or use a third-party tool that syncs a template library to mobile.

Can my team share the templates?

Not easily. Templates save to individual mailboxes. In a shared mailbox, templates you create are private to you unless the mailbox has been promoted to a full account, and even then everyone with access has to open it in new Outlook and promote it themselves. For genuine team sharing, you need a shared template library outside Outlook's native features.