Troubleshoot public folders

The information in my public folder disappeared.

• Some items may be temporarily hidden if the view you use filters out certain items. To view all of the items in a folder, click the View menu, click Current View, click Customize Current View, click Filter, and then click Clear All.
• If you view items in a table, the items might be grouped, and the groups might be collapsed so that you can't see the items within them. To expand groups to display details, click the Expand button . To collapse groups to hide details, click the Collapse button .
•  Are you working offline? You may have opened the public folder by using a shortcut on the Outlook Bar that points to the original public folder instead of to a shortcut in the Favorites folder under Public Folders. To use the public folder offline, you must have a shortcut to the Favorites folder under Public Folders, and the public folder must be synchronized as part of a Send/Receive group.
• Is the information you want under Public Folders in an offline folder? If the public folder you want is an offline folder, and the shortcut to the public folder on your Outlook Bar or in the Favorites folder under Public Folders points to a public folder that has subfolders, the subfolders won't appear. You must create individual shortcuts in the Favorites folder under Public Folders for each subfolder you want to use offline.

The form I want isn't available in the public folder.

You may not have permission to use the form, or you may be required to use another form to add information to the public folder. See the folder owner or your administrator. Contacts for a public folder appear on the Summary tab in the Folder name Properties dialog box. (Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.)

The view I want isn't available in the public folder.

• The view you want to use may only be available to the owner of the public folder. Ask the owner to save a copy of the view that's visible to everyone. Contacts for a public folder appear on the Summary tab in the Folder name Properties dialog box. (Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.)
• The view you want to use may be available only in one folder. In that folder, save a copy of the view, and then make the copy available in all of the folders that contain the same type of item.

  How?

  1. On the View menu, point to Current View, and then click Define Views.
  2. In the Views for folder list, click Current view settings.
  3. Click Copy.
  4. In the Name of new view box, type a name.
  5. To change where the view will be available, under Can be used on, click an option.

  Note    New views are added to the Current View submenu (View menu).

I can't add an item to a public folder.

• You may not have permission to create items in the folder. See the folder owner or your administrator.
• Some public folders require that you post information by using a particular form that you may not have set up. For information about forms, see your administrator.
• The item type needs to match the folder type. For example, you can't add a task item in a mail folder type. If you want to create a new item of a different item type than the folder, create the item in the matching folder type and then move the item into the public folder.

My changes weren't saved to a file in a public folder.

• If the file is created in a program that doesn't support linked objects, Microsoft Outlook may have opened the file as read-only and may not have been able to track and save your changes. To make changes, save a copy of the file on your hard disk, make your changes to the copy, and then save the copy in the public folder.
• If the file is created in a program that supports linked objects and embedded objects, you may have changed the file at the same time as another person. When more than one person changes a file in a public folder at the same time, and the program supports linked and embedded objects, only the changes made by the first person who saves the file are saved. To have more than one person change a file, try routing the file in an e-mail message so only one person at a time can make changes.

I see conflict messages in a public folder.

If your organization keeps public folders on more than one Microsoft Exchange Server computer, and the same item is modified on different computers, you may see conflict messages if those computers are synchronized.

To resolve the conflict, open the conflict message. This message contains all conflicting versions of the item. To combine all of the information into one item, open one of the items listed in the conflict message, and then copy any information you want from the other items into it. Then click Keep This Item. The other conflicting items are deleted.

To save all of the conflicting items as separate items in the public folder, click Keep All.

The Synchronization tab disappeared from the Properties dialog box for a public folder.

• The Synchronization tab only appears in the Folder name Properties dialog box for a public folder from the shortcut in the Public Folders Favorites folder. You must open the Folder name Properties dialog box from the shortcut, not from the original public folder, to use the Synchronization tab.

I receive an error message when I search for items in a public folder.

When you search for items in a public folder, you can only search one folder at a time. Subfolders and all other folders must be searched separately.