Office 365 Shared Mailbox not Showing up in Outlook

Sometimes it happens that your boss has assigned you a role in an Office 365 shared mailbox. But the shared mailbox is not showing up in Outlook. Most probably it may be an error or glitch.

 

In this article, I’ll talk about the Office 365 shared mailbox and how you can fix the following error in your Office 365 account. Keep reading!

What is a shared mailbox in Office 365?

A shared mailbox in Office 365 is a type of mailbox that multiple users can access to send and receive emails from a common email address, such as "support@company.com" or "info@company.com." It allows a team or group to manage communications without needing individual licenses for each user accessing the mailbox. 

Generally, companies and organizations use shared mailboxes. Because they need to receive and reply to emails from multiple customers from a single email address. In a shared mailbox, the administrator can easily assign roles and maintain the workflow in teams. 

If you have a Microsoft 365 license, you don't need to buy any extra license to use the shared mailbox. Usually, Microsoft offers 50 GB of free space on a shared mailbox. When you need more storage, you can buy additional licenses.

Common reasons: Why is the Office 365 shared mailbox not showing up in Outlook?

Before you seek any reasons, first make sure that the administrator has assigned you a role or given you the full permissions of a shared mailbox. If the shared mailbox is still not showing in Outlook, there may be an error or glitch. Here are some common reasons for the error: 

• Your Outlook profile may not be updated or synchronized with the most recent updates.
• Auto mapping may be disabled on your Outlook, which prevents the shared mailbox from appearing automatically.
• The Outlook application may be running in cached mode.
• Maybe a network issue on your device.

4 Fixes: Office 365 Shared Mailbox not showing up in Outlook

After you learn about the possible reasons why the shared mailbox isn't showing, the next step is to get rid of the errors. Here I have discussed several methods to fix the error:

Fix 1: Disable Auto Mapping in Microsoft 365

When you get access to any shared mailbox, Microsoft 365 automaps it. So that you can view and access the shared mailbox whenever you sign in to Outlook. 

In case the auto-mapping features don't work properly, you need to manually disable it to restore access to the shared mailbox. 

Before you start, remember that you must be an administrator to disable auto-mapping. As this procedure requires several commands to execute on PowerShell, I am not going to describe it in detail. You had better learn the procedure from Microsoft’s official guide on how to remove auto mapping for a shared mailbox.

Fix 2: Turn off cached mode in Outlook

If your Outlook application is running in cached mode, the shared mailbox may not appear. Here is the process of turning off the cached mode in Outlook: 

• First, open Outlook and go to the “File” tab.

• From the “Account Settings” section, click on the “Account Settings” button.
• Now, select your Exchange or Microsoft 365 email address and click on the “Change” button.

• Under the “Offline Settings” section, uncheck the “Use Cached Exchange Mode” checkbox and click on the “Next” button. 

Restart the Outlook application. This time Outlook may not run in the cached mode.

Fix 3: Recreate your Outlook profile 

Sometimes, your Outlook profile gets corrupted, and as a result, the shared mailbox doesn't appear on Outlook. As a solution, you can recreate or create a new Outlook profile. 

• Go to the “Control Panel” on your device.
• In the control panel, click on “Mail.” 

• When the “Mail setup-outlook” wizard appears, click on the “Show Profiles” button.

• Now, click on the “Add” button.

• In the “Profile Name” field, enter your name and click on the “Ok” button.

• Additionally, you can add a new email account by entering the login details.

• Lastly, in the “Mail” wizard, select “Always use this profile” and click on the “Ok” button. 

That’s it. In this way, you can create a new Outlook profile.

Fix 4: Manually add the shared mailbox 

In case you have tried all the above fixes but still don’t get any solution, you can try to add the shared mailbox manually. 

• Open your Outlook app, go to the “File” tab, and from the “Account Settings” section, click on the “Account Settings” button.

• Select the “E-mail” tab and double-click on your email account to open the email settings.
• In the “Internet E-mail Settings” wizard, click on the “More Settings” button.

• Select the “Advanced” tab. Under the “Advanced” tab, check the “Download shared folders” checkbox. Then click on the “Add” button and enter the shared mailbox name.

• Lastly, apply the changes and click on the “Ok” button. 

Once you finish the above steps, the shared mailbox might appear on your Outlook.

Secure your Office 365 and IMAP emails.

When you use Office 365 or any other IMAP email clients on a daily basis to communicate with your clients, a huge amount of emails are stored in your mailbox day by day. It’s necessary to backup them timely to prevent any accidental data loss. 

You can use the Regain IMAP Backup and Migration Tool. This software allows you to backup your IMAP emails within a few clicks. Besides, it comes with a built-in migration feature, so that you can migrate to any other email client easily. This software offers many more advanced features at a budget-friendly price.

• Install and run the software. You can also try out the trial version.
• At the top-left corner, click on the “Login” button.
• Enter necessary credentials and connect your IMAP email accounts.
• After the email account is successfully connected with the software, you can see a preview of all your available folders.
• Select the folders that you want to migrate. 
• Then connect your other IMAP email account where you want to migrate your emails. Otherwise, you can export your mailbox into multiple formats, including PST, MBOX, PDF, EML, and many more. 

So, now you can feel that taking backups and migrating emails is quite easy with the Regain IMAP backup and migration tool.

Conclusion 

Many times it happens, an admin has assigned you a role in an Office 365 shared mailbox. But the shared mailbox isn’t showing up on Outlook. Before you investigate the error, make sure the admin has properly assigned you a role. After that, you can try out the possible solutions.