How to share your Outlook mailbox or calendar with a colleague

Sharing a mailbox or a calendar with someone else

Two different things get called sharing, and picking the wrong one causes most of the confusion. Sharing your own calendar or a folder from your own mailbox is something you can do yourself in a minute. A proper shared mailbox, such as accounts@ or info@ that several people work out of, is something we set up for you.

Try this first

To share your calendar in Outlook on Windows:

  1. Click Calendar at the bottom left of Outlook.
  2. On the Home tab, click Share Calendar, then choose your calendar.
  3. Click Add, type the colleague's name, and select them.
  4. Choose how much they see. Can view when I'm busy shows free and busy blocks with no detail. Can view titles and locations shows a bit more. Can view all details shows everything, including the body of appointments. Can edit lets them change your calendar.
  5. Click OK. They will get an email invitation and need to accept it.

To share your calendar in Outlook on the web, open Calendar, click Share at the top right, type the person's address, choose the permission level, then click Share.

To share one folder of your mailbox, right-click the folder in the folder list, choose Properties, go to the Permissions tab, click Add, pick the person and choose a permission level. Reviewer lets them read. Editor lets them read, change and delete. To share your inbox you also need to give them permission on the mailbox name at the very top of the folder list, otherwise Outlook will not let them in.

To open something shared with you, click File, then Account Settings, then Account Settings again. Double-click your account, click More Settings, go to the Advanced tab, click Add and type the other person's name. It may take a few minutes to appear.

If that didn't fix it

Ask us if any of these apply.

  • You want a shared mailbox such as accounts@, info@ or sales@ that several people read and reply from, where replies go out from the shared address rather than from a person. Tell us the address you want, who needs access, and whether they should be able to send as that address as well as read it.
  • You want someone to manage your mail and diary on your behalf, accepting meetings and replying for you. That is delegate access and it is a different setting.
  • Someone has left and you need their mail and calendar handed to a colleague.
  • Sharing appears not to work. New permissions can take up to an hour to filter through, so give it that long before assuming it failed.

Two limits worth knowing. Sharing a calendar with someone outside your business usually only shows free and busy times, and sometimes not even that, depending on their setup. And a shared mailbox does not need its own licence in most cases, but if it needs to be signed into directly like a normal account, it does. We will tell you which you need before doing anything that costs money.

How to stop it happening again

Review who has access to your calendar once a year, and whenever someone changes role. Permissions are easy to grant and easy to forget. Right-click your calendar, choose Properties, then Permissions, and remove anyone who no longer needs to be there.

If you are setting up a mailbox that a team will share, ask for a shared mailbox rather than giving everyone the password to one person's account. Shared passwords make it impossible to tell who sent what, and they break the moment that person changes their password or leaves.

Still stuck?

Log a ticket at portal.yougrowit.com.au or email support@yougrowit.com.au. If it is stopping you working right now, call 03 9028 4358.

Support hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm Melbourne time, excluding Victorian public holidays.

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