Outlook Tip: Prevent People from Using Reply All, Forward on Your Messages

A powerful feature in Outlook -- if you're using Exchange Server, that is -- is the ability to disable the Reply All and Forward buttons. That way, you can send a confidential messages and effectively prevent anyone but the recipient from seeing it. Or you can avoid everyone from drowning your co-workers' inboxes with Reply All responses they don't want to see. Unfortunately, you can't do that sort of thing with Outlook on its own. Or can you? Yes. Yes you can.

Equipped with NoReplyAll, a free plug-in for Outlook, you can control what the recipient does with your e-mails. Once installed, you can choose whether to allow reply all responses and forwards via buttons in the ribbon. Recipients using Outlook will find the relevant controls disabled, limiting their response options.

Of course, NoReplyAll is not a true information-rights management tool, so truly dedicated recipients will find ways to forward your e-mail. The plug-in only works its magic for recipients who also use Outlook for example; anyone who gets your message in Gmail will be able to have their way with your message as usual. And even within Outlook, you can still copy and paste text into a new message, if you're so motivated.

Nonetheless, NoReplyAll is a great way to get a bit of the power of Exchange's capabilities without setting up your own enterprise server. [via Digital Inspiration]