How to create a link back to an email in Outlook for iOS

Software
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I need to know how to create a link back to a specific email in Outlook for iOS.
This way I can create a todo item in Things 3 and paste the url link back to the specific message.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks,
Greg

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I’ve struggled with this for quite some time. There’s no simple way, as best I can tell, and also be aware that if you move a message to a new folder in Outlook, the link will break. Also, any links open in the web app, not the mobile app (the same is true even with the Mac version of Outlook — links open in the web app).

With those caveats, three not-so-simple ways that may or may not work:

  • Shortcuts, via the Outlook web app - in the past, I used the web version of Outlook, and have a shortcut in the Shortcuts app, triggered via the share sheet in Safari. That will grab a link for the currently visible email in the web version, format it, and put in on my clipboard. I think this worked even in Safari on the iPhone (i.e., not just the iPad), but I can’t be sure about that.

  • Microsoft Power Automate, using a regular expression - If you know how to parse text with regular expressions, this should be doable with Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow). I started setting up a flow so I could flag an email in the mobile app, which would then put it in my Todoist inbox. I never got it working, because of my lack of regular expression knowledge. Basically, there is an identifier that the flow can grab. If you compare that identifier to a working email link, there are parts that are identical. You need to use a regular expression to reformat the initial identifier into the final link.

  • Via the Microsoft To Do app - When you send emails to the the Microsoft To Do app, the resulting task contains a link to the email (again, so long as you don’t move it to a new folder). I don’t remember if the iOS version of Outlook allows you to send emails to To Do, but if it did you could grab the link from To Do.


I utlimately switched from Things to Todoist, as Todoist has an Outlook add-in which lets you send tasks to Todoist with links back to the Outlook message (again, so long as you don't move the message to a new folder). The add-in works in the Mac version, and in the web versions of Outlook on the Mac and iPad. It does not work anywhere on the iPhone.
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Ok thank you so much for your response. I have been using Airmail on the Mac and iPhone along with Things. My goal has been to be able to create Things todos easily from emails regardless of weather on iOS or Mac. Airmail mail app was one of the few that worked with Things in this way. I was just checking to see if it could be done with Outlook. But links not opening in the native app is a dealbreaker for me. Thanks again for taking the time to respond!

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Quick question for you / rant:
Do you only have one Outlook account? I have two separate accounts, and I find this integration lacking (really any Outlook add-on) because it doesn’t direct you to the correct account. It will just use whichever one you are currently logged in as, and many links just won’t work.

Right now I’ve settled on using a 3rd party app like Spark, Newton, Airmail, which has URLs that work across all platforms.

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Yes, I only have one Outlook account. My firm uses Microsoft 365. I separate my personal email into a different app and provider (there were rare occasions I sent email from the wrong account, and this separation helps prevent that). I’m now using Outlook for work, and Spark for personal on both Mac and iOS/iPadOS (with Gsuite on the backend). Before that I used MailMate on Mac and Airmail on iOS.

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