About Public Folders

Public folders are an easy and effective way to collect, organize, and share information with other people in your workgroup or organization. You can use public folders to share files or post information on an electronic bulletin board. You can also use them to store items, such as calendars and contacts, which are shared by two or more people.

Public folders, which are stored on Microsoft Exchange Server computers, are created and designed by administrators and other people in your organization who have the appropriate access permissions. These access permissions determine who can view, create, and modify items in the folders. Anyone who uses your e-mail server can read and post items to your server's public folders and to public folders on other servers.

Note Depending on the server where a particular public folder resides, you may be prompted for security credentials, such as a password, when you try to open that folder. For more information, see the Microsoft Exchange Server online documentation or contact an administrator. Also, if you logged on only to view public folders, you may have to supply security credentials to access your Exchange mailbox folders, such as your Inbox.

To open a public folder

In the Navigation Pane, click Public Folders. Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access displays the public folder tree in its own browser window.
Click the plus sign next to Public Folders to expand the display of your organization's public folders. Click the plus sign next to a folder to view additional folders nested within it.
To open the public folder, click it. The messages posted to that folder are displayed in the adjacent viewing area.