Outlook Desktop app being "weird" about shared mailboxes

[brandonkick]

This is M365 biz standard, so it's the 365 version of outlook desktop app.

Even on a brand new windows install, new SSD, fresh install of outlook....

I set up outlook, signed in to the users account, added the shared mailbox... everything is fine. Expect, I had them test run the computer while I was there. Opened outlook up, worked great. Had them reboot the computer just to show them how much faster it was going to be. They were very happy. Except, Outlook was being a weiner about the shared mailbox. It just said "Outlook cannot expand this folder" for the shared mailbox, and it was all collapsed down in the left hand nav.

Sometimes just shutting down outlook and reopening it "fixes" this. Other times a reboot does. And.. when it's being a real SOB.... have to delete that shared mailbox out of outlook entirely, and then re add it to get it to open or sync new items again.


Why? Is this a known issue? Workarounds?

 

[callthatgirl]

Outlook was being a weiner

You didn't threaten it, like I do . You should see how fast Outlook behaves when I threaten!!!

My work around is make it a mailbox and not a shared mbx. Most of those people on the shared want full everything/mobile, etc. for $4-6 a month, easy solution.

 

[HCHTech]

I haven't seen this behavior with shared mailboxes - our SOP when client's employee leaves is to convert their account to a shared mailbox and give their supervisor read/manage access, which brings that mailbox into their Outlook until they get a new computer for a short review period until they let us know the data isn't needed anymore. I've had cases where there were 3 or 4 shared mailboxes accessible in someone's Outlook in addition to their own. Long way of saying I think there is a problem with that particular mailbox.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

What do you mean "added the shared mailbox".....shouldn't have to manually add it, just put the user in the "members" list of the shared mailbox and it will auto populate in Outlook within an hour.

Not a "known issue" that I'm aware of, and we have a LOT of clients all on 365 and tons and tons of shared mailboxes being used out there at our clients. Very widely used feature. Can get it on mobile apps also, only, on the mobile apps, you have to manually add a shared mailbox once..and it sticks, easy to add to Outlook for iphone/android.

 

[nlinecomputers]

What do you mean "added the shared mailbox".....shouldn't have to manually add it, just put the user in the "members" list of the shared mailbox and it will auto populate in Outlook within an hour.

Not a "known issue" that I'm aware of, and we have a LOT of clients all on 365 and tons and tons of shared mailboxes being used out there at our clients. Very widely used feature. Can get it on mobile apps also, only, on the mobile apps, you have to manually add a shared mailbox once..and it sticks, easy to add to Outlook for iphone/android.

What he said and HCH said also. Do this all the time with no issues.

 

[brandonkick]

What do you mean "added the shared mailbox".....shouldn't have to manually add it, just put the user in the "members" list of the shared mailbox and it will auto populate in Outlook within an hour.

Not a "known issue" that I'm aware of, and we have a LOT of clients all on 365 and tons and tons of shared mailboxes being used out there at our clients. Very widely used feature. Can get it on mobile apps also, only, on the mobile apps, you have to manually add a shared mailbox once..and it sticks, easy to add to Outlook for iphone/android.

So probably another instance where I didn't articulate the situation all that well.

What happens is... Joe, Jim and Bob are all added to a shared mailbox through the M365 admin portal (by me). Adding them to this shared mailbox goes well. They can nearly instantly get at the mail either via the web version of outlook, or by adding this new shared mailbox to their outlook 365 desktop app. In this case, user will have their primary company email already set up in outlook desktop app and then add the new shared mailbox.


The "problem" is with the outlook desktop app. It just seems to throw random fits about the shared mailbox. The users primary email (joe@company.com) works great in outlook desktop app. Never causes an issue. The one shared mailbox Joe is a member of, which has been added to Joe's outlook desktop app, will randomly refuse to allow access. When you click on it in the left hand nav bar, it's collapsed and says "Outlook can't expand this folder". Or it will allow you to open it, but it seemingly just stops syncing just that shared mailbox.

Restarting the outlook desktop app usually fixes that problem. But some times that shared mailbox just refuses to work in outlook desktop app... web based version is fine with Joe signing in to his primary email, and then going to the top right hand corner, clicking on the circle with his initals in it, and then clicking "view another mailbox" and putting in the shared mailbox address but the desktop app will just randomly refuse to play nice with that shared mailbox. All the while, it will still show the users primary email address and whatever email has been pulled down locally just fine.

At first I wrote it off as the user just needing a fresh install of windows and the office suite. Their computer was running like a month of sundays. So I got them a brand new Samsung SSD. Fresh Windows 10 22H2 install. Fresh install of all of their apps directly from M365 portals. Still same problem. I added both mailboxes (primary and shared) to outlook desktop... worked great. They rebooted the machine, opened outlook... shared mailbox was problematic. Closed outlook, reopened outlook.... works now.


Do I just chalk this up to "hey, its windows /a microsoft product... sometimes a restart just fixes things... don't ask me why" or is there maybe a reason? Seems to be the "hey... this just happens" thing. But wanted to see if the folks who do this day in, day out have seen this before.

 

[nlinecomputers]

What happens is... Joe, Jim and Bob are all added to a shared mailbox through the M365 admin portal (by me). Adding them to this shared mailbox goes well. They can nearly instantly get at the mail either via the web version of outlook, or by adding this new shared mailbox to their outlook 365 desktop app.

That is the confusing part. The end user DOES NOT have to add the shared mailbox. It will appear automatically, usually within one hour, and usually after restarting Outlook if it was open when added. If they are somehow adding it manually then something is wrong or your shared mailbox is NOT a proper shared box.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah that's what I was saying up above...what nline just repeated above. There is zero action that has to be done on the end user machine, for a shared mailbox to show up in Outlook. The only action that needs to be done to have a shared mailbox show up in an end users Outlook, is...the admin adds that end user as a "member" of the shared mailbox. You wait...usually well within an hour...and the shared mailbox will just show up in the users Outlook. On some slower computers on slower connections...it may take a hair over an hour...or what you can do is close Outlook...wait a minute...open Outlook again..and that fresh login of Outlook should refresh its access and boom....the shared mailbox automatically shows up.

On the client computer, you do not have to "add a shared mailbox"....it's all automated.

Only on Outlook for Android/iPhone...do you have to "add a shared mailbox" on the client side, once they've been given membership.

So...I am wondering, if...doing some "manually adding the shared mailbox to Outlook"...causes some issues. I never tried it that way.

Amount of members on a shared mailbox should not have any impact either...I have some larger clients where there a shared mailbox for many dozens of users as members.

 

[brandonkick]

Well that is certainly the interesting part.... those shared mailboxes were not just showing up automatically. Still aren't.

I have to manually go in and add them to the outlook desktop app.... or at least I thought so. Maybe I just wasn't waiting long enough and by adding them in manually I am causing the problems I am having. Interesting.

I'll have them nuke those "extra" accounts for the shared mailbox, leaving only their regular accounts. Maybe even go full nuclear and just wipe out outlook and reinstall it. Have them just sign in to their regular accounts and see if the shared mailboxes pop up within the hour.

 

[callthatgirl]

Wait, you don't need to add a shared mailbox if the permissions are set in admin panel. Nuking Outlook will do nothing.

 

[brandonkick]

Wait, you don't need to add a shared mailbox if the permissions are set in admin panel. Nuking Outlook will do nothing.

What I mean is... I already manually added two accounts to the two employees outlook desktop apps

Their primary one (so employee@company.com) and then on each workstation I also manually added sharedmailbox@company.com but used the primary employees credentials to authenticate. It "works". But it also causes these weird issues where it either won't sync, or just won't open the shared mailbox at all.


I'm thinking I at least need to clear that extra "account" (the one for sharedmailbox@company.com) as I signed into it as well?


I basically want to get back to a state where I would be if I just installed outlook, and simply signed in to their primary email account and let the shared mailbox populate on it's own. As I understand it, if I do it that way (as opposed to manually adding it as another sign in account) that I shouldn't have these strange sync /access issues on that shared mailbox?

 

[nlinecomputers]

What I mean is... I already manually added two accounts to the two employees outlook desktop apps

Their primary one (so employee@company.com) and then on each workstation I also manually added sharedmailbox@company.com but used the primary employees credentials to authenticate. It "works". But it also causes these weird issues where it either won't sync, or just won't open the shared mailbox at all.


I'm thinking I at least need to clear that extra "account" (the one for sharedmailbox@company.com) as I signed into it as well?


I basically want to get back to a state where I would be if I just installed outlook, and simply signed in to their primary email account and let the shared mailbox populate on it's own. As I understand it, if I do it that way (as opposed to manually adding it as another sign in account) that I shouldn't have these strange sync /access issues on that shared mailbox?

Ok, we need to clarify our terms here. "A shared mailbox" in Office 365 is a thing. If you purchased a license for a "shared box" because more than one person is going to access it and are now trying to put that on Outlook alongside a user's real mailbox, YOU ARE DOING WRONG.

A shared mailbox is a FREE item. A kind of group alias email with its own mailbox. BUT It CANNOT be logged into as it is not a full account. There is NO license assigned to it. You create the mailbox in the GROUP section of the Office 365 admin and then assign the users to it. Once assigned it magically appears alongside your regular inbox in outlook. Which is the only way to access the mailbox as it has no login.

About shared mailboxes - Microsoft 365 admin

Shared mailboxes are used when multiple people need access to the same mailbox. Learn what you need to know before creating a shared mailbox.

learn.microsoft.com

Trying to setup Outlook with more than one FULL exchange account doesn't work well. If at all. That sound like why you are having problems..

 

[nlinecomputers]

Create a shared mailbox - Microsoft 365 admin

Create a shared mailbox to enable multiple users in your business to share the responsibility of reading and answering email sent to one address.

learn.microsoft.com

 

[mikeroq]

Yea when you add users to a mailbox with full access (shared or another users mailbox) it will automatically appear in Outlook after a while. This is called automapping. Could take an hour. I've had them show up shortly, or take over an hour. Seems like it used to be faster. In the past I found if I manually added the shared mailbox in Outlook, the automapped version would show up later and the user would have it twice. Not sure if that still happens.

You can however assign access via powershell, and there is a flag that will disable the automapping so Outlook will not pickup the mailbox.

But normal operation is, you create a shared mailbox, assign users to it, and it will show up in their Outlook. No manual adding needed.

 

[brandonkick]

Ok, we need to clarify our terms here. "A shared mailbox" in Office 365 is a thing. If you purchased a license for a "shared box" because more than one person is going to access it and are now trying to put that on Outlook alongside a user's real mailbox, YOU ARE DOING WRONG.

A shared mailbox is a FREE item. A kind of group alias email with its own mailbox. BUT It CANNOT be logged into as it is not a full account. There is NO license assigned to it. You create the mailbox in the GROUP section of the Office 365 admin and then assign the users to it. Once assigned it magically appears alongside your regular inbox in outlook. Which is the only way to access the mailbox as it has no login.

About shared mailboxes - Microsoft 365 admin

Shared mailboxes are used when multiple people need access to the same mailbox. Learn what you need to know before creating a shared mailbox.

learn.microsoft.com

Trying to setup Outlook with more than one FULL exchange account doesn't work well. If at all. That sound like why you are having problems..

Interesting.

I was on the phone with M365 support, and when explaining to them I needed a "shared mailbox" this is what they had me do in the M365 admin portal:

I went to Teams & Groups in the hamburger menu and then went down to "Shared Mailboxes". Clicked on the Add a Shared Mailbox link. They had me create two shared mailboxes, then had me add the users I wanted to add and finally had me add two "Exchange Online Plan 2" licenses (I think, because I had a requirement of 100GB inbox size for each of those).



So I think we both are talking about the same thing... like I was "misunderstanding" but more I didn't know that you shouldn't be manually adding these as accounts in Outlook. The Exchange plan 2 I think is only because I needed 100GB inbox size.


Now the support person never told me to add these shared mailboxes manually to outlook... I theorized (incorrectly) on my own that this is how it would be done.

But if you open outlook, you can sign in to a shared mailbox the same way you sign in to a regular M365 / O365 account. You enter the shared mailboxes email address, and then it will pop up for password (using sharedmailbox@company.com as the user). You can click "sign in as another user" and then supply the email address and password for any user who is a member of that shared mailbox and the O365 desktop app will let you sign in like it's a normal account. That's where I went wrong it seems. I'm just now trying to undo that, and get back to only having the one regular user account and let all the other shared boxes just "appear" like they should without touching outlook further.

 

[nlinecomputers]

So I think we both are talking about the same thing... like I was "misunderstanding" but more I didn't know that you shouldn't be manually adding these as accounts in Outlook. The Exchange plan 2 I think is only because I needed 100GB inbox size.

Yep. I was just making sure we understood each other. I’d see if you could get away with not having the paid for box. That’s just waste for an email that all most certainly doesn’t need everything archived.