Outlook for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet: Ribbon quick reference

This download accompanies our story Outlook for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet. See that article for detailed information on how to get the most out of Outlook for Microsoft 365/Office 365 in Windows.

For the most part, the Ribbon interface in Outlook for Microsoft 365/Office 365 is intuitive to use. It’s divided into a series of tabs that group related commands together. Since it’s always present at the top of your screen, the Ribbon puts a wealth of commands in easy reach at all times.

But with so many tabs and so many commands, it’s not always obvious where to go to perform a given action. And Outlook’s Ribbon is more complicated than the Ribbon in other Office apps like Word and Excel. While the Outlook Ribbon always includes the same tabs (File, Home, Send / Receive, Folder, and View), each tab may show different commands depending on whether you’re in Mail, Calendar, Contacts, or Tasks. For instance, the Home tab in Mail has somewhat different commands from the Home tab in Calendar, whereas the Send / Receive tab is pretty similar no matter what section of Outlook you’re in.

To help, we’ve compiled a guide that shows each Ribbon tab, explains what it’s for and highlights its most commonly used commands. And for those of you who don’t like to take your hands from the keys to point and click, we’ve included keyboard shortcuts for all the actions.

For example, if you want to create a new rule for handling incoming email messages, you’d go to the Move group on the Home tab and click the Rules button, or press Alt-H and then R and R again. To overlay a calendar on top of the current calendar, go to the View tab, select Overlay in the Arrangement group, or press Alt-V, then O and L.

Keep this reference guide handy so you’ll always know where to find the commands you need.