The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on May 30, 2024.
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Hide Outlook's Default Folders
If you have multiple Microsoft exchange accounts in your classic Outlook profile, you will have a calendar and contact for each account. If you aren’t using all of the calendar and contacts folders and they are cluttering up the view, you have two options: change a property on the folder to hide it or make a new group in the navigation module and move the folder to it so it’s not cluttering up the My Calendars or My Contacts groups. Or, you can do both, moving the folder to a new group then hiding the folder. This way, if Outlook unhides the folder, it’s in the separate group.
Outlook is likely to unhide a folder if you add an item to the folder. For calendar, receiving a meeting request could cause Outlook to show the folder. Saving the address from an email could trigger showing the Contacts folder.
Hiding a folder is only supported in classic Outlook and only applies to the profile you hide it in. If you use multiple computers or profile, you need to hide it in each profile.
While you can use MFCMAPI to manually change the hidden folder property, I have a PowerShell script and VBA macro that will allow you to hide folders. It takes just a few seconds to run either script. The advantage of the VBA is that you can create a button on the ribbon and run it when Outlook unhides the folder. PowerShell’s advantage is you don't need to change macro security settings.
In addition to Calendar and Contacts folders, you can hide Conversation History, Journal, and Notes, all of which should stay hidden.
Instructions and scripts are in this article: How to Hide or Delete Outlook's Default Folders
To hide folders of the same name in multiple accounts in Outlook, see Hide Extra Folders in Outlook.com for a VBA macro. This would be good for Journal and Conversation History but not Calendar and Contacts as it will hide the folders in your default data file too. If you hate the Archive folder, you could use it to hide that folder in all data files too (but Outlook may unhide it).
Recall Messages in New Outlook?
A user switched from classic Outlook to new Outlook and wanted to know how to recall messages.
The Recall option is available on the right click menu on a Sent item, but only in Microsoft 365 Work or School accounts.
It is not supported by Outlook.com accounts, IMAP, or POP accounts. This is because recall only works on messages sent within the same Exchange organization. While Outlook.com accounts are on Exchange server, each account is in its own little organization.
Classic Outlook does not hide the recall option (on the File tab of an open message) when you use an Outlook.com account, but recall will always fail when you use an outlook.com account.
No one can recall messages sent to other mail hosts, such as Gmail.
Why does recall only work within an Exchange organization? Because when a message is handed off to another organization, you no longer “own” it. It would not be right to go into their mailbox and delete it.
Recall used to fail if the message was read, but new changes in Microsoft 365 Exchange now allow recall to work if the message was read.
Recall an email message that you sent in Outlook - Microsoft Support
Recalling Sent Messages (slipstick.com)
Recurring Out of Office?
A user forgets to set an Out-of-Office message on his day off, which is the same day every week. He asked if its possible to set up Out-of-Office to recur.
No, Automatic Replies, aka Out-of-Office, does not support recurring events. You need to set it weekly, but can set the next Out-of-Office event when you come back after you day off.
I recommend setting up the Out-of-Office to end an hour after you start working. Because you can set it up in advance, this will remind you to turn it off and set up the next occurrence.
New & Updated Microsoft 365 & Exchange Server Support Articles
Activity-based authentication timeout for Outlook on the web in Office 365
Describes considerations are applied for the activity-based timeouts
New & Updated Outlook Support Articles
Unable to assign categories to items in Shared and Delegated Mailboxes in Outlook for Mac
Error replying to encrypted emails from Outlook Desktop
Known issues with Outlook Desktop Shared Calendar Improvements
Outlook Desktop calendar Out of Office color indicator unexpectedly changed
Outlook Desktop cannot load the contact card and gets stuck at "Loading"
Outlook Desktop is slow to save attachments to a network path
Recall Message in Outlook Desktop stops working after February 2024 security updates
Searching Current Folder of a shared mailbox in Outlook Desktop returns no results
Signatures are not syncing between Outlook Desktop and Outlook Web App
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