Outlook Tips

Learning Microsoft Outlook One Tip At A Time

Header Right

Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginner's Guide Diane Poremsky [Outlook MVP]

Tip 742: Outlook 2010 and Shortcuts to Public folders

If you want to use a shortcut to open Outlook to a public folder, you can use the select switch and path to the public folder:

Outlook.exe /select "outlook:\\Public Folders\All Public Folders\folder\subfolder"

This works great in older versions of Outlook but fails in Outlook 2010 with an error message:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook.  Cannot display the selected folder or item.

In Outlook 2010, you need to include your Exchange email address in the path:

outlook.exe /select "outlook:\\Public Folders – frank@slipstick.com\All Public Folders\folder\subfolder"

Published May 11, 2010. Last reviewed on November 16, 2012.

Related posts:

An administrator asks: I'm running Outlook 2003 in an MS Exchange 5.5 environment. One of my users posed the question of why tTip 210: Printing Calendars from Public FoldersThe Favorite folder list is useful for Search Folders you've created and puts them one click away, not buried at the end of thTip 273: Adding Folders to Favorite Folders"I would like to be able to link a folder to a contact in outlook. I have been able to place a shortcut (or hyperlink) to parTip 206: Create links to foldersA useful shortcut for people with a lot of folders is the ability to press keys to move to the next folder that begins with that cTip 90: More Outlook Shortcuts

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thanks Diane. Is there a way to fix the profile so that the email paths do not appear? We need a consistent folder path without the email address across all users.

    Reply

  2. Version is Outllok

    Version is Outlook 2010. we upgraded from 2007. So if no email address in public folder from 2007 then none in 2010? is this a profile issue?

    Reply

    • Yes, it sounds like a profile issue - when you upgraded to 2010, all of the folder names used by outlook 2007 were kept. right click on the folder, choose Properties - you can get the full path to it from there.

      Reply

  3. This is

    This is true but some users don't have their email path as part of the public folder path. Trying to find out why?

    Reply

    • What version of Outlook? Was the profile created in an older version of Outlook? When you upgrade, Outlook 2010 does not change the display name.

      Reply

  4. I am trying to set a shortcut to open a subfolder within a subfolder in public folders directly.

    I set the path but when I open the link it still just opens up to my inbox.

    Any suggestions?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *