If you care about how long it takes you to find an email in your public folders, then this post is for you.  I like to think that people are impressed with my ability to quickly find project emails at work…

The simple setting change below tells Outlook to cache a copy of every single email in your public folder favorites on your hard drive which allows Windows search to index them all and allows you to search all of your emails from the start bar.

Requirements:

1. Outlook 2010
2. Windows Vista or newer
3. Email stored in public folders

Steps:

1. Open Outlook 2010.
2. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Data File Tab > Settings > Advanced Tab
3. Check the box that says “Download Public Folder Favorites”
4. Add any public folders you would like to search to your favorites.
5. Wait for Outlook to sync a copy to your computer. A word of warning: this literally downloads every single message in your public folder favorites to your computer, so if your public folder favorites are 5 GB, it will download 5 GB to your computer. I recommend doing this from a wired connection at your office
6. When Outlook is done, click start and type in your search in the “Search Programs and Files” search bar.

The most common search terms I use are From:(email), To:(email), and date:(date) but here is an article from Microsoft describing all of the search terms: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/advanced-tips-for-searching-in-windows

Let me know if you impress anyone!