Entourage GTD: Quick Delete

May 6th, 2007 by Adam Sneller

As powerful as Microsoft Entourage is, you would think that something as simple as the Delete Key would be a no-brainer. Think again!

For some reason, the developers have decided that just hitting “Delete” is far too obvious. If you want to get rid of a task, for example, you have to first select the task and hit Cmd-Delete. This brings up a Warning Dialog, which then lectures you on all the dangers of deleting!

Okay, so there’s nothing wrong with being cautious. And we all know that when you delete something in Unix/Mac OS X, it’s gone! But consider the dialog:

Entourage’s Default Dialog

Notice anything… obvious!??? That’s right. The Cancel button is default choice. So if you actually want to delete this thing, you now have to use your mouse to override Entourage’s final attempt to override you!

Fortunately, there is light at the end of this tunnel. It’s called Quick Delete (and I think the picture says it all).

Quick Delete Dialog

That’s right. Hit [Enter] for ‘Delete’ or [Esc] to cancel. The whole process is localized to the keyboard. Just follow the installation below, and you’ll be on your way to Getting Things Done more efficiently, with less aggravation along the way.

Installation

  1. Download and extract the file: Entourage Quick Delete
  2. Navigate to the Entourage Script Menu Items folder. This can be found at: ‘~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items/’ (the “~” is Unix shorthand for your “home” folder).
  3. Save the script to this folder and restart Entourage.

Usage:

By default, the script is activated by keying Ctrl-D (that’s what the ‘\cD’ in the file name is for). You can of course rename the script to fit the key-combination of your choice.

Related Posts

  • Entourage GTD: Action Scripts 4-D
  • OmniFocus GTD: Actions from Mail (redux)
  • Entourage GTD: Assign Projects 1.0
  • OmniFocus GTD: Create Actions from Mail
  • Entourage GTD: Action Scripts 2.0
  • Random Plugs

    3 Responses to “Entourage GTD: Quick Delete”

    1. Jeremy Young Says:

      Hey there - thanks for this script! it will save me so much time. A couple of questions…

      1) Does this work with Entourage 2008?
      2) Do you know of a similar script that will let me close an Entourage mail, contact, task, etc by hitting the ESC key? I really don’t understand why I need to close it manually with the mouse when the ESC key has worked in Windows for ages and is so easy to use.

      If you can let me know I’d appreciate it!

    2. Adam Sneller Says:

      Jeremy -

      I haven’t tried these on Entourage 2008 yet… my copy should arrive sometime next week, so you may want to hold off installing anything until I can spec. this out.

      On the mac, you can close any window (Entourage notes, email, contacts included) by hitting ⌘W.

      Best,
      -Adam

    3. Adam Sneller Says:

      Jeremy -

      I went back and tested all the scripts here. And yes, they do work with Entourage 2008.

      Adam

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