The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on May 22, 2025.
EMO is a weekly publication. To receive your own copy of EMO by email, subscribe here.
Support Exchange Messaging Outlook Sponsors
Increase Your Productivity!
ReliefJet Essentials for Outlook is a set of more than 160 tools for performing a wide range of tasks in Outlook: processing email messages, contacts, appointments, meetings, tasks and other Outlook items.
Today's Highlights »
Plus Icon on Outlook Folders?
When you use a business Exchange account, you may see icon overlays the folders in your mailbox.
The most common is a double arrow icon. This indicates the mailbox is shared with another user. To see who the folder is shared with, right click on the folder, choose Properties then click on the Permissions tab.
A less common icon is a plus sign. This icon indicates the account was shared with another account in your profile. Think of it as a warning that your Outlook profile is misconfigured.
When an account (Account A as an example) is given Read and manage (Full Access) rights to another mailbox, the second mailbox is shared and will sync to Outlook when you add the account (Account A) to Outlook. There is no need to add the shared mailbox as an account as it will show up in the folder list automatically, using the display name, not the email address.
If you add the shared mailbox as an account, effectively adding it to your profile twice, you’ll have some weird behavior. The rules and alert dialog may fail to open. Rules for the shared account may fail or appear to disappear from the Rules and alerts dialog.
Deleted items will go into the Deleted items of the mailbox that is now considered “the owner” (Account A).
In addition, the folders in the account that was added as a shared mailbox may have a plus sign on them.
There are two ways to fix this. Either remove the account that was shared from the Outlook profile (it will still be in Outlook since it was shared with an account that is in Outlook) or remove Read and manage (Full Access) permissions.
To remove Read and manage (Full Access) rights, the admin will log into the Exchange admin portal, click on the affected user’s name. On the Delegates tab, click Edit under Read and manage (Full Access). Remove the account (Account A) that is also in the profile.
Close and reopen Outlook twice and the plus icons should clear.
Note that adding an account that you have delegate rights to as an account may also cause Outlook to act buggy.
Open Outlook Templates using PowerShell
One of my clients uses templates to send weekly updates to his clients. He has the client’s address(es) saved in a template created for each client. After opening the template, he needs to type the update and change the From address.
Because the templates are simple text, they can be saved anywhere on his computer and opened using a double click. He does not need to use Outlook's convoluted Template dialog of New Item menu > More Items > Choose form. But he still needs to find the templates (saved in a folder in OneDrive) and change the From address.
While he can pin the folder to Quick Access and I have a VBA macro that can open templates using a toolbar button (and change the sending address), using PowerShell is an option. PowerShell can’t be added to the classic Outlook toolbar directly; you could use VBA to call it. But that defeats the purpose of using PowerShell: to avoid changing the Macro security level.
Solution: drop the PowerShell file (actually a batch file that calls the PowerShell script) on the desktop then right click > Run with PowerShell. (For security reasons, double clicking on a PowerShell file opens it for editing.) You can also run the PowerShell script using a batch (*.BAT) file, which can be double clicked.
As a bonus, the PowerShell works with new Outlook to open the templates as the script opens the template using the default app for *.oft files in Windows Settings. It won’t change the Sending address as the new Outlook doesn’t have an object model.
Note: If the templates are simple text, no controls, the template does not need to be in Outlook default template path and can be opened by double clicking on the template. They can even be stored in a folder in classic Outlook. Templates with controls, most commonly Contact forms, must be saved in the default template folder and opened using the Template dialog.
I have several variations of the script. One opens the folder where the templates are stored and changes the sending account. The address you want to use in the From field must be added to classic Outlook as an account.
A second version uses a proxy address (secondary address) in your mailbox. This would also work with accounts you have send as permissions on (in business Microsoft Exchange accounts).
The remaining script samples open a template or folder that contains the templates but does not change the sending address.
To get the scripts and complete instructions, see Open Outlook Templates using PowerShell
Sort by Unread and Read Mail?
A user wanted to sort their inbox with unread mail at the top, followed by the read mail. Unfortunately, this is not possible with Outlook (any version).
Classic Outlook has a field for Read state, but you can’t sort by it.
There are two options: Use the filter to show only unread mail or use the Unread Search folder.
If you aren’t using Focused Inbox, the tabs are All and Unread. Focused inbox users can choose the Unread filter using the filter menu to the right of the Focused / Other tabs.
New & Updated Microsoft 365 & Exchange Server Support Articles
Get the status of legacy Exchange Online tokens and add-ins that use them | Microsoft Community Hub
Released: April 2025 Exchange Server Hotfix Updates | Microsoft Community Hub
New & Updated Outlook Support Articles
CPU spikes when typing in classic Outlook for Windows
Classic Outlook mail merge hangs trying to initialize Word
End of support for Office 2016 and Office 2019
Errors CAA2000B, 4usqa, and 49dvs when trying to sign in to classic Outlook and Outlook for Mac
Error when trying to print a Word document attached to an email in new Outlook for Windows
Other Resources
Count and List Folders in Classic Outlook
A user had problems syncing Outlook with his IMAP account and I suspect it is because he has a large numbers of folders. While we could count the folders one by one, it's easier to use PowerShell and it does not require changing macro security.
Open Outlook Templates using PowerShell
I have VBA code samples to load templates and change the Sender address without going into Outlook's convoluted Template dialog but wanted a PowerShell version.