Public folders

On-premises Exchange

This page covers hosted on-premises Exchange, not Exchange Online.

A public folder is a shared folder in the Exchange organization. Several people can read and contribute to the same set of messages or items, which makes it useful for shared correspondence and team archives.

Managing folders

The Public Folders screen lists the organization’s folders. Each has:

• Settings — name, and the permissions deciding who can see and post
• Addresses — email addresses, once the folder is mail-enabled
• Mail Flow — delivery options for mail sent to it
• Mail Enable — whether the folder can receive email at all

Mail-enabling a folder

A folder is not reachable by email until it is mail-enabled. Once it is, it gets an address and mail sent there lands in the folder.

This is the usual pattern for a shared enquiries or archive address where the point is that the whole team sees the history, rather than mail sitting in one person’s mailbox.

Mail-enabling changes who can reach the folder

Before mail-enabling, check the folder’s permissions. A folder that was internal-only becomes reachable by anyone who learns the address, and any external sender can then deposit content into it.

Permissions

Permissions decide who can view the folder, who can post, and who can manage it. They are the whole security model for a public folder — there is nothing else protecting the contents.

New subfolders inherit from their parent

A subfolder created under a permissive parent starts permissive. When a folder tree grows organically, access spreads with it, and nobody notices until something confidential sits in a folder half the organization can read.

Review the tree periodically rather than only setting permissions when a folder is created.

Deleting a folder

Deleting a public folder deletes its contents for everyone

The folder and everything in it goes, for every user at once, and MSPControl holds no copy to restore from. Public folders often hold years of shared correspondence that exists nowhere else.

Confirm with the folder’s owner rather than the person requesting the deletion — they are frequently not the same, and the requester rarely knows what else is in there.

Related

• Exchange mailboxes
• Storage usage

The tabs on a public folder

Tab	What it controls
Public Folder Settings	General configuration
Public Folder Mailenable	Whether the folder can receive mail, and as what
Public Folder Addresses	The addresses it answers to once mail-enabled
Public Folder Mailflow	Delivery restrictions

Mail-enabling is the step that turns a folder into a mail recipient. Until it is done the address tabs have nothing to configure, which is the usual reason a public folder appears to be missing its email settings.