Microsoft Office 365 rolls out a new feature to help users avoid ‘reply all’ email storms: Here's how it works

In a bid to protect Office 365 users from reply-all email storms, Microsoft has been rolling out a new feature named ‘Reply All Storm Protection’.This will prove beneficial in cases when a less-attentive employee forgets to bcc everyone or misconfigures a distribution list, resulting in reply-all email trails.The tool will initially be helpful to organisations having large distribution lists. It will help companies by detecting 10 reply-all emails sent to over 5,000 recipients within an hour and blocking subsequent replies to the thread for four hours.[caption id="attachment_6445311" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

The company said it would tweak, fine-tune, and enhance the tool to accommodate “a broader range of Office 365 customers.”[/caption]“We are considering possible future enhancements to improve our 'reply all' storm detection accuracy, add admin customisable thresholds and block duration, as well as producing 'reply all' storm reports and notifications,” Microsoft said.The feature will be made available to smaller organisations too in due course. The company said it would tweak, fine-tune, and enhance the tool to accommodate “a broader range of Office 365 customers.”An announcement about this feature was made at the Ignite conference last year.Microsoft recently announced that it would offer Windows 10X on single-screen devices such as laptops first. It is reprioritising the operating system for single-screen devices in view of the coronavirus pandemic.The company said that customers are using Windows PCs to work and connect in the prevailing situation. “Over 4 trillion minutes are being spent on Windows 10 a month, a 75 percent increase year on year,” said Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer, Windows and Devices.Microsoft originally planned to introduce Windows 10X to dual-screen devices like the Surface Neo.