Applies to: Outlook 2013

A public folder is a folder present in Outlook 2010 to share files with others. The information in the folder can be accessed by selected users or by all users present under same mail client. The level of privilege to use the public folder will be provided to users by the owner of the public folder. The public folder in Outlook 2010 can contain anything like calendars items, messages or contacts. Using outlook, you can share contacts, tasks calendars and you can even share files. By sharing the files, you can centralize the information in the file. The information in the files can be discussed and final output file can be shared through this public folder option. Once the permission is granted, then adding a public folder in Outlook 2010 is an easy task.

By default, you won't see the public folders you have access to in Outlook 2010. You have to switch views slightly.

  1. Start Outlook 2010.
  2. By default, you'll be placed in the normal mailbox view.
  3. At the bottom of the screen on the left, you'll see a small folder icon. Click it.
  4. You are now switched to folders view. Notice you can now see the top-level Public Folders container.
  5. You can expand this to see all PFs you have access to.

6.    Favorites in Mail Navigation

You might want to add a public folder to your Favorites list in the “folder type” Navigation as well for even more convenient access.
To do this, you first need to add the folder to your Public Folder Favorites as indicated above. After that, right click the folder again within Public Folder Favorites and choose “Add to Favorite Folders” (Outlook 2003 and 2007) or “Show in Favorites” (Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013)


Adding a Public Folder in the Favorites section of the Mail Navigation requires you to mark it as a favorites twice.