Outlook desktop can't search shared mailbox contents

Eaven HUANG 2,126 Reputation points
2022-03-22T03:34:39.66+00:00

, Dear Experts,

I noticed that Outlook (2019, 365) desktop App doesn't search anything from the shared mailbox. We used Office 365 subscription and shared mailbox can be added into Outlook without password. I checked on the index option and found that there was only personal account being indexed.

Any way we can search things which are inside our shared mailbox in Outlook app?
Thanks a lot!

185445-outlook-index-option.png

Outlook Management
Outlook Management
Outlook: A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Nicholas Reynolds 16 Reputation points
    2023-01-12T14:41:36.7733333+00:00

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHq5w7xYG0M
    This works for me. Not sure what I was doing wrong before.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
  2. Leon Guo 6 Reputation points
    2022-07-14T03:20:13.877+00:00

    I have the same issue as well. Difference is the shared mailbox is unlicensed at the beginning. But after we assigned license, some of the PC will work perfect some of PC still not working. (Only works in current mailbox option not all mailbox) Even after we added the account into the outlook. The current version of the outlook we are using is office 365 and some PC are running office 2016. The working function PC is new profile when we added the accounts into the outlook, the others which the function not working are using existing profile. I haven't confirm to create a new outlook profile will solve the problem or not. But at least this is what we are facing to atm.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  3. Edison C 6 Reputation points
    2022-10-20T18:59:46.233+00:00

    I am experiencing the same exact issue; I can only use the search for my main account and not through a Shared Mailbox: Microsoft® Outlook® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2208 Build 16.0.15601.20204) 64-bit

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  4. Steven Hou 6 Reputation points
    2022-11-07T10:02:40.177+00:00

    I have been in contact with Microsoft support and it's not possible to search an automapped shared mailbox.
    "It's been designed that way" is the answer I got. What a disapointment!
    There's a workaround which I found..
    In order to enable search over all mailboxes you need to add the shared mailbox manually through Outlooks account settings.
    The downside of this is that it will prompt for password and authentication from time to time, which causes a lot of fuss if a large group is using a shared email.
    Just make sure you don't use the members list when delegating shared mailbox access.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  5. Rick Gratto 5 Reputation points
    2023-02-12T02:12:24.39+00:00

    For Auto mapped Shared mailboxes, the best way to search in them is to turn cached mode off for the shared mailbox first, then you are able to use the Outlook search function to search "current mailbox". This will allow users to be able to search the mailbox anytime they want without Outlook providing a null result. I did a video on this for my application that integrates with shared mailboxes, you can see it here: https://emailgistics.com/learn/best-practices/module-2/
    For turning off cached mode for shared mailboxes you can check out:
    https://emailgistics.com/knowledge-base/turning-off-cached-exchange-mode-for-your-shared-mailboxes/

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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