Automapping means when a user is granted full access privileges to another mailbox in Outlook, it will be automatically added to that user’s profile without doing anything else. It is a nifty little feature that is simple and fast.
But an issue with automapping a mailbox is that you cannot share individual items in that mailbox like messages or calendars; instead, you have to share the entire mailbox.
However, there is an alternative.
And in this article, I’ve described the step-by-step process showing how to automap a shared calendar in Outlook using an Office 365 account and how to open the shared calendar.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
Follow our guide how to View Someone Else’s Calendar in Outlook
What is Automapping in Office 365?
Automapping is a feature that allows you to spontaneously map a whole shared mailbox that you have permission to open in Outlook. Mapping grants a user full access to the mailbox. And when the user launches Outlook, the automapped mailbox will open.
Suppose your mailbox is john@outlook.com, and an administrator has allowed you to view the jodi@outlook.com mailbox. In that case, the jodi@outlook.com mailbox will automatically open the next time you open Outlook.
As you can see, it saves a lot of time as you don’t need to select individual items from a mailbox and share them; you just share the entire mailbox. Automap is already enabled by default when full access permission is granted to the mailbox.
But automapping will not function for the group of users if you use Mail-Enabled Security Groups to give full access permissions.
For that, you have to grant full access to each user separately.
Check out our separate post on how to Sync Outlook Calendar with iPhone
In Office 365, automapping a shared calendar basically means sharing the calendar’s mailbox and selecting each user individually to grant them full access to the mailbox.
Because you cannot automap just the calendar, you have to map the entire mailbox associated with the calendar. As a workaround, you can create a new mailbox, add the shared calendar in that mailbox and automap it.
In short, to automap a shared calendar in Office 365, you have to:
- Add a shared mailbox in your Outlook.
- Add the calendar you want to share in that mailbox.
- Grants users full access permission to that mailbox separately.
Let’s perform these tasks one by one.
Also, check out our separate post on how to Fix Outlook Crashes When Opening/Switching Calendar
Here’s How to Automap a Shared Calendar in Outlook Office 365:
A shared mailbox allows a group of users to observe and send emails from a public name. When a user receives a message from a shared mailbox, the user sees the shared mailbox name and not the sender’s actual name.
Here’s how to add a shared mailbox to your Outlook:
- Launch Outlook.
- Go to File > Info.
- Click on Account Settings and choose Account Settings.
- Select your email and click Change.
- Click on More Settings, and the Microsoft Exchange window will open.
- Go to the Advanced tab and click Add.
- Type the name of your mailbox and click OK.
- Click the Apply button.
- Restart Outlook.
After these steps, a new mailbox will be added to your Outlook. Go to your Outlook home page and check.
You may also like to read: how to Fix Outlook Crashes at Startup
To create a shared calendar, you need to be the admin of the mailbox or have access to the administrator mailbox and follow the steps below.
Here are the steps to create a shared calendar in Outlook:
- Open Outlook.
- Select the mailbox you want to automap.
- Go to the Calendar tab.
- Click on Open Calendar and choose Create New Blank Calendar.
- Give the calendar a Name.
- Click OK, and a new calendar will be created.
- Add events to the calendar.
Also, check out our separate post on how to Fix Send Receive Error in Outlook
To automap a mailbox, you need to grant full access permission to a user for that mailbox. And to allow full access, you must have an admin account in Office 365.
Here’s how to grant full access to a shared mailbox:
- Open your browser, go to the Microsoft Admin page and log in.
- Pick Exchange on the left side under Admin centers.
- Select Mailboxes under Recipients.
- Choose and Click on the mailbox you want to map.
- Select Manage mailbox delegation under Mailbox permissions.
- Click on Edit next to Read and manage.
- Select Add permissions.
- Choose the user that you want to grant full access to the mailbox.
- Click Save and Close when you see users added successfully.
After these steps, the shared mailbox will open automatically when the user launches Outlook.
In case you are granted full access permission to a shared mailbox, the shared calendar will be added to your Shared Calendars list. If you don’t see the shared mailbox, just restart Outlook, and the mailbox will automatically show up on your profile.
But the shared calendar in the mailbox won’t appear automatically, and you need to follow the steps below to view it.
Here are the steps to open a shared calendar in a shared mailbox:
- Launch Outlook on your device.
- Open Calendar.
- Right-click on Shared Calendars and choose Add Calendar > Open Shared Calendar.
- Put the name of the shared calendar and click OK. You’ll now see the shared calendar name under Shared Calendars in the folder pane.
- Put a checkmark on the shared calendar to view the events on that calendar.
You can remove the tick on the shared calendar to display your main calendar.
What are Some Problems Regarding Automapping?
Although automapping is a fast and straightforward feature of sharing, it’s not exactly perfect. And I’ve faced problems related to sending and deleting emails, permissions, and app performance issues when I tried using a mapped mailbox in Outlook.
Here are some issues related to automapping in Outlook:
Sending Emails from an Automapped Mailbox
When you send an email from a mailbox that you have full access to, that email will be saved into the Sent Items folder of your mail account and not in the shared mailbox Sent Items folder.
Deleting Emails from an Automapped Mailbox
When you send an email from a mailbox that you have full access to, that email will be saved into the Deleted Items folder of your mail account and not in the shared mailbox Deleted Items folder.
Blank Folders & Calendars in an Automapped Mailbox
Sometimes a mapped mailbox shared with your Outlook account can be empty. In that case, you need to download the shared folders in that mailbox.
Here are the steps to download the shared folders:
- Open the Outlook app.
- Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
- Double-click on your Microsoft Exchange Server account in the Email tab
- Select More Settings in the Change Account window.
- Go to the Advanced tab in the Microsoft Exchange dialog box.
- Clear the Download shared folders check box.
- Click OK twice.
- Choose Next, click Finish, and Close.
- Relaunch Outlook.
Outlook Performance
If too many mailboxes are mapped to your account, your device will become slow, and Outlook might stop responding.
Permissions Issues with Automapped Mailboxes
Incapable of using permissions appointed to the automapped account. For instance, let’s assume jodi@outlook.com is mapped to john@outlook.com and john@outlook.com has full access to other mailboxes which jodi@outlook.com doesn’t have.
In that case, even though john@outlook.com has full access to other mailboxes, he won’t be able to open them. The owner of that account has to log into the Service Account.
FAQs
How do I enable auto-mapping for a shared mailbox?
Auto-mapping is already enabled when a user is granted Full Access privileges to the mailbox using the Exchange Admin Center.
How do I turn off Automapping in Outlook?
To turn off automapping in Outlook, link PowerShell to your Exchange account, remove permissions for the account that you want to disable automap from the shared mailbox, remove the shared mailbox, restore permissions to the mailbox with Automapping turned off, add the shared mailbox back to Outlook as a separate email address.
How do I enable calendar sharing in Outlook 365?
To enable calendar sharing in Outlook 365, open Outlook, go to Calendar, select Share Calendar, pick the calendar you want to share, click on Add, select the people you want to share the calendar with and click OK when you are done choosing the recipients.
Final Thought
Automapping allows you to automatically map a whole mailbox that you have permission to open. An admin just has to grant you full access, and that’s it.
But by default, automapping doesn’t allow you to only map the calendar in a mailbox.
However, here, I’ve described a workaround to automap just the calendar in a shared mailbox using Outlook for Office 365.
Let me know if you have further questions about automapping or other issues. See you in the comment section.
