Search Outlook-Tips     

When you open attachments on email directly from Outlook, a copy is written to a temporary folder on your hard drive. This is so that the virus scanner can check it before it is opened. The folder Outlook uses is under the temp internet folders. This offers more security as only your user account and the computer administrator account can view the files under this folder. The only way to avoid "losing" attachments in this well hidden folder is to save them to your hard drive, before opening. Few people do this (myself included).

In Windows XP the folder for Outlook 2000 to 2003 is at
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK*. The OLK directory will end in a series of numbers.

Outlook 2007 uses
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook\ 8A0VMD3A, where 8A0VMD3A can be any random characters.

Vista moves the Temp Internet folder to
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\, so you'll need to look there for the OLK or Content.Outlook folder.

You can find the location of the folder (and move it) by looking in the registry at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security, look at the value for OutlookSecureTempFolder. You can change the folder to point to a new location, but be sure the new folder exists before changing it in the registry.

Note: 12.0 reflects the version of Outlook: i.e., Outlook 2007. Use 10.0 for Outlook 2002 and 11.0 for Outlook 2003.

In Vista you can go to the folder location by replacing  username with your username below then copy and paste into the address bar of Windows Explorer then press Enter. Browse to the subfolder.

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook\

Tip 27: SecureTemp Folder - for older versions on Windows XP