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Access another person's mailbox

You can access another person’s mailbox if you have been granted the appropriate permissions to their mailbox.

Consider these scenarios:

  • A manager needs an assistant to monitor email on his or her behalf. In this scenario, an assistant that has been granted the appropriate permissions to a manager’s mailbox can view the manager’s mailbox.

  • A manager needs an assistant to monitor a specific folder on his or her mailbox. In this scenario, an assistant that has been granted the appropriate permissions to a folder in a manager’s mailbox can view only the contents of that particular folder of the manager’s mailbox.

Note: This feature is only available to Microsoft 365 email accounts and other Microsoft Exchange-based accounts. For more information, see What is a Microsoft Exchange Server account?.

The steps in this article assume that you have already been granted the appropriate permissions to the other person’s mailbox.

In this article

Access another person’s mailbox in Outlook

If you are using Outlook 2013, the mailbox for which you have been granted access automatically display in your folder list. In the example below, Adam Barr has been granted access to the mailbox of Kim Akers. Kim’s mailbox displays automatically in Adam’s folder list in Outlook 2013.

Note: If you were recently granted access to the mailbox, it may take a few hours for the other user’s mailbox to display in your folder list.

Shared folder displays in Outlook 2013 folder list

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Add another person’s mailbox to your folder list in Outlook Web App

After you complete this procedure, the person’s mailbox for which you have been provided access to will display in your Outlook Web App folder list every time you open Outlook Web App.

  1. Log in to your mailbox using Outlook Web App.

  2. Right-click your name in the folder list, and click Add shared folder.

    Outlook Web App Add shared folder right-click menu option

  3. In the Add shared folder dialog box, type the name of the mailbox that you have been provided access, and click Add.

    Outlook Web App Add shared folder dialog box

  4. The mailbox appears in your Outlook Web App folder list.

    Shared folder displays in Outlook Web App

    If you have only been provided access to specific folders in the other user’s mailbox, you will only see the folders for which you have been granted access.

If you decide that you no longer want to see the other person’s mailbox every time you open Outlook Web App, right-click the folder, and click Remove shared folder.

Outlook Web App Removed shared folder right-click option

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Open another person’s mailbox in a separate browser window in Outlook Web App

If you do not want to add the other person’s mailbox to your folder list in Outlook Web App, you can open the other person’s mailbox in a separate browser window.

  1. Log in to your mailbox using Outlook Web App.

  2. In the Navigation bar on the top of the Outlook Web App screen, click on your name. A drop-down list will appear. Click Open another mailbox.

    Outlook Web App Open another mailbox menu

  3. Type the email address of the other mailbox that you want to open, and click Open.

    Outlook Web App Open another mailbox dialog box

  4. The other person’s mailbox opens in a separate Outlook Web App browser window.

If you have only been provided access to specific folders in the other user’s mailbox, you will only see the folders for which you have been granted access.

Tip: If the mailbox you have been provided access is one that you need to access often, you can make the mailbox display in your folder list for your Outlook Web App mailbox. To do this, see Add another user’s mailbox to your Outlook Web App folder list earlier in this article.

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What if I want to know more?

  • Permission to act on behalf of another user or group is commonly referred to as delegate access. The permission to access another person’s mailbox is an example of a delegate access permission that can be granted to a user. Other examples of delegate access permissions include the following: permission to send email on behalf of another person, and permission to access and manage another user’s calendar.

  • For information about how to sign in to Outlook Web App, see Sign in to Outlook Web App.

  • For information about how to send email on behalf of another person or group, see Send email from another person or group.

  • For information about managing another person’s mail and calendar items using Outlook, see Manage another person's mail and calendar items.

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