Entourage GTD: Quick Delete
May 6th, 2007 by Adam SnellerAs 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:
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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).
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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
Installation
- Download and extract the file: Entourage Quick Delete
- 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).
- 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.
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January 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am
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!
January 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
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
March 28th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Jeremy -
I went back and tested all the scripts here. And yes, they do work with Entourage 2008.
Adam
October 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am
As a new user to Entourage, I’m baffled that multiple events cannot be selected using command or shift keys in the calendar. This works in Outlook and iCal to delete multiple items, change mass categories, or copy sets of events to different weeks. Am I missing something? Jeez =T.
Also, do you mind informing me what the proper file title should be to hotkey Cmd-Delete? \mDel? no…
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:32 am
Hi Adam,
I’m trying to get rid of thousands of duplicate calendar events. It’s a nightmare. Can’t select multiple events. Also once something is deleted the next event along doesn’t get automatically selected.
Thought your quick delete might help a little. But if I hit \cD\ accidentally without an event selected the the whole entourage crashes and I have to restart.
Any ideas?
Thanks
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Ans,
I think the best way to approach this is to use the “Calendar Views”. You can create a view that searches for specific criteria or just use “All”. This will display events in a list format, in which multiple events can be selected and deleted at once.
Good luck!
-adam