Important: Outlook Mobile will be retiring the voice search and Play My Emails features in June 2024. To learn more, see End of support for Cortana.
Play My Emails (PME) on Outlook mobile is a voice-driven experience for users to listen and respond to email messages, find out about changes to their day, and adjust their calendar. This topic contains an overview of the accessibility features on iOS and Android phones to give the best possible experience.
iOS
Siri Shortcut
You can launch Play My Emails with your voice by setting up a Siri Shortcut.
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Go to Outlook mobile Settings
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Select Siri Shortcuts
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Select Play My Emails
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Accept the default shortcut, “Hey Siri, Play My Emails,” by selecting the Done button or record your own by selecting Change Voice Phrase.
When you want to start listening to your emails, unlock your phone and say, “Hey Siri, play my emails."
Back Tap
If you’ve set up a Siri Shortcut for Play My Emails, you can connect it to Back Tap to start listening to your emails by tapping the back of your phone.
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Go to iOS Settings
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Select Accessibility, then Touch, then Back Tap
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Choose either Double Tap or Triple Tap for how you want to launch PME
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Scroll down to the list of Shortcuts and select Play My Emails
When you want to start listening to your emails, just double or triple tap the back of your phone.
Control your inbox with VoiceOver gestures
Skip to the next email: Swipe right with three fingers
Go back to the previous email: Swipe left with three fingers
Pause Playback: Double tap screen
Archive email: Swipe up with three fingers
Flag email: Swipe down with three fingers
Respond to calendar events with VoiceOver gestures
Accept a meeting: Swipe down with three fingers
Decline a meeting: Swipe up with three fingers
Change your default gestures
When VoiceOver is turned on and you’re listening to your emails, you can archive an email by swiping up with three fingers and flag an email by swiping down with three fingers. These swipe gestures map to custom action buttons that appear to the left and right of the Play button on the Play My Emails screen. These gestures can be customized to perform different actions, like flag, snooze, delete, and more, by going to Settings > Play My Emails > Swipe Options. To change the action taken when swiping up with three fingers, you need to change the Swipe Left option. To change the action taken when swiping down with three fingers, choose Swipe Right.
Note: This is only for swiping up and down gestures used while Cortana is reading your email. The swipe gestures used to respond to a meeting invite will remain the same.
Android
Google voice command
No setup required, just say, “Hey Google, play my email on Outlook.”
Control your inbox with TalkBack gestures
Skip to the next email: Swipe right with three fingers
Go back to the previous email: Swipe left with three fingers
Pause Playback: Double tap screen
Note: Google voice command to start Play My Emails is only supported for PME users with their language set to English.
