Adding a mailbox to Outlook: How to set up access to mailboxes in Outlook

E-mails are an elementary component of internal and external communication in many companies. How often your e-mail inbox has to be checked in the daily business process and how often the mail volume has to be processed depends on the field of activity as well as the position in the company. As a contact person for employee concerns, a regular look in the mailbox, for example, is just as indispensable as a central point of contact for one or more important customers.

If, due to an excessive number of messages, you are unable to keep up with the inspection and processing of message traffic, it may make sense to grant access to the mailbox to colleagues. They can then integrate the mailbox into their own e-mail account and view the incoming messages – and, with the appropriate authorisation, process them. In Microsoft Outlook, this shared mailbox usage works for all accounts stored on a shared Exchange server. But how can the mailbox be shared in Microsoft's e-mail client? And how do you add it to another Outlook mailbox afterwards?

For a variety of reasons, it can be useful or necessary to add a mailbox to your Outlook account that actually belongs to a different profile. For example, a common scenario is that a manager needs support in managing their mailbox, and so grants access to their colleagues. Depending on the authorisation level, the wizards can support them in capturing and sorting or even replying to received messages. Another use case is the joint management of an e-mail support account. By including several users in the Outlook mailbox belonging to the support account, the processing of support requests can easily be distributed.

Finally, it is conceivable that mailboxes of former colleagues will be integrated – at least temporarily – into the Outlook accounts of people who still work in the company. This is especially important if the former employees have been in regular e-mail contact with customers – in this way, the associated account can remain temporarily active.

To be able to integrate the mailbox of another Outlook account into your own account, it must first be released. It is possible to share the entire mailbox or only individual folders. The latter is useful, for example, if you only want to share messages from a specific customer. You can also specify whether you want to grant read-only access or the option of sorting, replying to, or even deleting e-mails yourself. After approval, the Outlook mailbox can then be added and managed within the granted rights.

The mailbox should now be displayed in the list of additional mailboxes to be opened. If this is the case, save the changes with “Apply.” Finally click on “OK” and then on “Next.” Outlook will then inform you that your account has been successfully updated.

You can now see the added Outlook mailbox in the folder area. If you select it, the client lists the messages it contains directly in your own account.

In the account settings, select the Outlook account in which you want to integrate the mailbox, and then press “Change...”. In the following menu, click “More Settings...” to edit the Microsoft Exchange settings for this account:

In the next step, switch to the “Advanced” tab and add the desired mailbox via “Add.” To do this, enter either the name of the user or his Exchange address and confirm with “OK”:

Now click on the “Apply” and “OK” buttons one after the other and on “Next” and “Finish” in the other windows to save the added Outlook mailbox. This will now appear automatically in your own account in the folder view of the client: