How to insert your available times into an Outlook email
Someone asks to meet, and you want to reply with a few times that suit you. Here are the ways to do it in Outlook without flicking back and forth to your calendar, starting with what's built in.
1. New Outlook and Outlook on the web: Send availability
In a new email or reply, open the … (More actions) menu and choose Send availability. Pick a meeting length, click the free slots you want to offer, and choose Insert to email.
It's free and built in, and needs a Microsoft 365 work or school account. The slots arrive as booking links: your recipient clicks one, enters their details on a booking page, and the meeting is created for you. That suits some contacts. Others would rather just reply.
2. Classic Outlook for Windows: Insert → Calendar
In a new email, go to Insert → Calendar. Choose a date range, set Detail to Availability only, and tick Show time within my working hours only. Outlook inserts a block of your free and busy times for each day.
It's free and built in. The result is a long schedule your recipient has to read through rather than a few clear options, and it usually attaches a calendar file you'll want to delete.
3. A booking page (Microsoft Bookings, Calendly and others)
Share a link to a page where people pick a time themselves. It's great for high volumes of routine meetings. It's less suited to a first meeting with a senior contact, where asking them to visit your page and book themselves in can feel transactional.
4. ThreeTimeSlots: three plain-text times in one click
ThreeTimeSlots is an Outlook add-in we make. Click Insert 3 times and it checks when you're busy, then writes your next three free slots into your email as ordinary text:
Thursday, 15 October, 12:30 – 13:30
Monday, 19 October, 08:30 – 09:30
Tuesday, 20 October, 10:00 – 11:00
Your contact replies "Monday works", and you send the invitation. You set meeting length, hours, days and a gap around other meetings once. It's free for 10 uses, then US$5 once. See how it works.
Which should you use?
- Happy for people to book themselves in: Send availability (new Outlook) or a booking page.
- Showing a colleague your whole week: Insert → Calendar.
- Offering a few times in a personal email, especially to clients or senior people: ThreeTimeSlots, or type them by hand.