Outlook – How to add items on Outlook ribbon that are not “listed” commands

microsoft-officemicrosoft-outlookmicrosoft-outlook-2007microsoft-outlook-2010vba

I use custom tabs on the ribbon of all my MS Office 2010 applications. I would like to add some items that are not in the listed commands on the "Customize the Ribbon" dialog. For example, I'd like to add the "Send/Receive" item in the Advanced Options dialog. But that command is not listed, even in the "All Commands" list.

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Note: I did figure out that I could write a VBA macro that opens this dialog and then add the macro to the ribbon. That's what I did, but I'm thinking & hoping there is a cleaner way to accomplish this. I'm looking for a fast, simple way to do this, that doesn't require building an add-in. (The time it would take to build one would likely outweigh the time saved by having the item on the ribbon.)

I'm using Outlook 2010, but this question would apply to any version of Outlook that has a ribbon. The answers however, may be version-specific (assuming there is an answer).

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[EDIT] Please note I am not asking how to add this specific command. If you can answer that, cool! But the point of the question is how to add unlisted commands in general.

Also, please look at the screen shots. I am not asking how to add the Send/Receive All command (F9 shortcut). The desired command in the example, opens a dialog that allows management of the settings for sending and receiving.

Best Answer

Note:I hate to answer my own question, especially with just a couple of links. So I'm going to mark this as a community wiki.

My question was easily misunderstood, but I couldn't think of a better way to word it. What I was asking was, if there was an easy way to add commands to the ribbon, when those commands were not listed in the command list. I won't give another example here because I don't want to confuse the issue further.

I believe the answer I was looking for is that there is not a trivial way to accomplish this, i.e. drag & drop as for a listed command. But I did get an off-site answer from a former Outlook team member, who understood the question and directed me to the following resources on MSDN. Following these methods allows one to add any command, COM add-in, etc. to the ribbon by simply modifying XML. Outside of drag & drop, that's about as easy as it gets.

Temporarily Repurpose Commands on the Office Fluent Ribbon

Customizing the 2007 Office Fluent Ribbon for Developers

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