How to Use Copilot in Outlook to Write Emails (2026 Guide)

To write an email with Copilot in Outlook, open a new message, select the Copilot icon in the toolbar, choose Draft with Copilot, describe the email you need in one or two sentences, and select Generate. Copilot produces a full draft you can adjust for tone and length before sending. You do need a qualifying plan: as of July 2026 that means Microsoft 365 Copilot at work, Copilot Pro, or a Microsoft 365 Personal/Family subscription with monthly AI credits. This guide walks through the exact steps in new and classic Outlook, gives you five copy-paste prompts that produce usable first drafts, and breaks down what each access option costs.

What You Need Before You Start (Plans and Prices)

Copilot in Outlook is not free with a bare Outlook.com account. You need one of four paid routes, and the right one depends on whether you are writing work email on a company plan or personal email on your own subscription. Here is what each option costs as of July 2026, verified against Microsoft’s published pricing.

Option	Price (as of July 2026)	Best for	Outlook limits
Microsoft 365 Personal / Family	Included with your existing subscription	Personal email, light use	60 AI credits per month; on Family plans only the subscription owner gets Copilot
Copilot Pro	$20 per user/month	Individuals who draft email daily	No monthly credit cap in Office apps
Microsoft 365 Copilot (work add-on)	$30 per user/month, annual commitment	Enterprise accounts	Full features incl. thread summaries and inbox prioritization
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business	$18 promo ($21 standard) per user/month through Dec 31, 2026	Small businesses up to 300 users	Same core Outlook features as the enterprise add-on

Check the current numbers on Microsoft’s official Copilot pricing page before buying — the small-business promo pricing has an end date. One more requirement that catches people out: on consumer plans, Copilot only works with Microsoft-hosted addresses (outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com). A Gmail account added to the Outlook app will not show the Copilot icon.

How Do You Draft an Email with Copilot in Outlook?

In new Outlook, select Home > New mail, click the Copilot icon above the message body, choose Draft, type your instruction, and select Generate. Review the result, adjust tone or length from the dropdown, then select Keep it and send. The classic desktop app follows the same flow with slightly different labels.

New Outlook and Outlook on the web

1. Select Home > New mail.
2. Click the Copilot icon in the toolbar above the empty email and select Draft. If the icon is missing from the toolbar, click the Draft with Copilot text directly in the message area.
3. Type your prompt in the Copilot box, or pick one of the suggested prompts and edit it.
4. Select the Generate arrow and wait a few seconds.
5. Not right yet? Open the dropdown under the draft to change length or tone, or edit your prompt and generate again.
6. Select Keep it, make your final edits by hand, then Send.

Important: Draft with Copilot does not work in plain-text compose mode here. Go to Settings > Mail > Compose and reply and set the format dropdown to HTML.

Classic Outlook for Windows

1. Select Home > New Email.
2. Click the Copilot icon in the toolbar and choose Draft with Copilot.
3. Type your prompt and select Generate.
4. Use Adjust to pick a different tone or length, edit the blue prompt text to refine, or Regenerate to start over.
5. Select Keep, edit, and Send.

The full option-by-option reference lives in Microsoft’s official Draft with Copilot documentation, including Mac and mobile steps.

5 Copy-Paste Prompts That Get Usable First Drafts

The single biggest difference between a generic draft and one you can actually send is the prompt. Tell Copilot five things: who the email is for, what it needs to accomplish, the key facts, the tone, and roughly how long it should be. Each prompt below follows that pattern — paste it into the Copilot box and swap in your details.

1. Project status update (delay)

Write a short, friendly email to my project team letting them know the Q3 report is delayed from Friday to Tuesday because we are waiting on final sales numbers. Ask everyone to hold their sections until then. Keep it under 120 words.

Expected result: a three-paragraph update with the new date up front and a clear ask — no apologizing for three sentences before getting to the point.

2. Meeting request with options

Draft a polite email to a client asking for a 30-minute call next week to review their renewal contract. Offer Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon, and ask them to suggest a time if neither works. Professional but warm tone.

Expected result: a short request that gives the recipient two concrete choices plus an out, which measurably reduces back-and-forth.

3. Declining a proposal

Write a respectful email declining a vendor proposal. Thank them for their time, explain we chose a solution that fits our budget better, and leave the door open for future projects. Three short paragraphs.

Expected result: a firm but courteous no. Watch the middle paragraph — Copilot sometimes over-explains, so cut any sentence that invites negotiation you don’t want.

4. Chasing a non-reply

Draft a follow-up to someone who has not replied to my email from last Monday about the shared marketing budget. Reference the earlier message, restate the one decision I need from them, and give a Friday deadline. Direct but courteous.

Expected result: a two-paragraph nudge that names the decision and the deadline in the first three lines.

5. Office-wide announcement

Write an email announcing that our office is moving to a new address on August 3. Include a bolded line where I can paste the new address, tell people what they need to pack and by when, and end on an upbeat note.

Expected result: a structured announcement with a visible placeholder — a good example of asking Copilot to leave slots for facts it doesn’t know rather than letting it invent them.

How Do You Reply to Emails and Fix Your Own Drafts?

To reply with Copilot, open the message, start a reply, and use the same Copilot icon — or click Help me reply in the message area to open Chat, which reads the thread and proposes a response. If you would rather write the email yourself, Coaching by Copilot reviews your draft instead of replacing it.

Three reply-and-refine features worth knowing:

• Help me reply / Help me write: in new Outlook and mobile, these open a chat pane where you describe what you want to say; the draft appears in the message area and updates live as you refine it in chat.
• Edit selected text: highlight any sentence you have already written, click the Copilot button that appears next to the selection, and pick an option to rewrite just that part — useful for softening one blunt line without regenerating the whole email.
• Coaching by Copilot: write your email by hand (at least 100 characters), then run Coaching. Copilot scores the message on tone, reader sentiment, and clarity and suggests specific rewrites. This is the feature to use for delicate emails you want to stay yours.

Copilot vs Gemini vs Plain ChatGPT: Which Should You Use?

Choose Copilot in Outlook if your mail already lives in Outlook and you qualify through a work plan or Microsoft 365 subscription — in-client drafting that can read the thread beats copy-pasting. Choose Gemini if you are a Gmail user. Choose free ChatGPT with good prompts if you send AI-assisted email occasionally and don’t want another subscription.

• Choose Copilot in Outlook if… your company already pays for Microsoft 365 Copilot, or you have Microsoft 365 Personal/Family and send fewer drafts than the 60 monthly credits cover. Thread-aware replies and Coaching are the differentiators.
• Choose Gemini if… your email runs through Gmail. The workflow is nearly identical — our guide on how to use Gemini in Gmail to write emails covers it prompt by prompt.
• Choose plain ChatGPT if… you refuse to add a subscription. Drafting in ChatGPT and pasting into any mail client is free and works everywhere; start with these ChatGPT prompts for professional emails.

One more Outlook-specific advantage to weigh: on business plans Copilot also condenses long conversations directly in the reading pane — the same job Gemini does in Gmail, which we compared in our guide to summarizing long email threads with Gemini.

FAQ

Is Copilot in Outlook free?

No. As of July 2026 you need Microsoft 365 Personal/Family (60 AI credits per month included), Copilot Pro at $20/month, or a work Copilot license ($30/user/month enterprise, or $18–21 for small businesses). The free Copilot chatbot at copilot.microsoft.com cannot draft inside Outlook, though you can paste its output in manually.

Why don’t I see the Copilot icon in Outlook?

The usual causes: your account has no Copilot license, you are composing in plain-text mode (switch to HTML under Settings > Mail > Compose and reply), you are using a non-Microsoft address on a consumer plan, or your IT admin has disabled Copilot. On Family plans, only the subscription owner gets Copilot.

Can Copilot see my other emails when it writes a draft?

When you reply with Help me reply or summarize a thread, Copilot reads that conversation to build context. On business plans it works within your organization’s Microsoft 365 permissions — it can only use content you already have access to, and prompts are not used to train the underlying models.

Verified against Microsoft’s published documentation and pricing on July 20, 2026. Microsoft ships Copilot changes frequently — if a menu label differs, check the official support page linked above.