Many times, part of your responsibilities will be to monitor an email account other than your own (this most often takes the form of a “generic” department account, such as our own example of helpdesk@coloradocollege.edu). The easiest way to do this is generally to add that mailbox to your Outlook profile so you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between the two.

To add an additional mailbox to your mail folders in Outlook 2003/2007, follow these instructions:

1. Go to the ‘Tools’ menu and click ‘Account Settings…’ (2007) or ‘E-mail Accounts…’ (2003)

2. Click ‘Change’ (Note: screen in Outlook 2003 will look slightly different)

3. Click ‘More Settings…’

4. Under the ‘Advanced’ tab, click ‘Add…’

5. Type in the name of the generic mailbox you are trying to access. Click Ok.

*Note that if there is more than one mailbox matching what you typed, you’ll be presented with a list from which to choose.

6. The mailbox should appear in your list of mailboxes in Outlook within a few moments. Be sure to click the plus sign next to the mailbox to reveal the inbox:

If, when you click the + to expand the mailbox, the inbox does not show up or you get a message saying “could not expand the set of folders”, it means that permissions have not been set up correctly on the mailbox. Contact the owner and ask for permissions (the Help Desk is always happy to assist with this).

For more information about creating and managing a “generic” e-mail account, Click Here.

Last revised 02/08/08