Add to Exchange Server Public Folder Contacts?

Last reviewed on November 16, 2012

An administrator recently came to us with a problem:

We would like the ability to add a contact to a Public Folder by right-clicking on a name in an email. I have yet to figure out a way to do this. Having multiple users being able to add new contacts to the public folder (vs. private contacts) would allow all users to gain access to the contact with less data entry.

While you can’t right-click and add to the Public Folder contacts (or any other contacts folder), you can use the Move to Folder command to save the contact to any folder.

Right click and choose Add to Outlook Contacts, just as you do now, to open a contact form that is populated with the display name and email address. When you are ready to save the contact, instead of clicking the Save & Close button, use the Move to folder command, selecting the folder you want to save the contact in. Once a folder is used, it should remain on the folder selection MRU list, unless users are moving items into more than 10 other folders more often than they save contacts.

To make it easier for your users (because old habits die hard), add the Move to command to the toolbar or ribbon, in the position Save and Close holds now.

The keyboard shortcut for Move to folder is Ctrl+Shift+V, which opens the folder list picker with the last used folder selected. There is no MRU using the keyboard shortcut.

Written by

Diane Poremsky
A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999 and involved in IT support since 1985, Diane is the author of several books and video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.