Maintain separate read/unread status for multiple users in one Outlook mailbox

Question

We have multiple people using a single mailbox (email address) in Outlook, accessing it from different PCs.  How can we maintain read/unread status of messages independently for each person?  So, if mail comes to [e-mail], and person A opens it, then when person B and C open the mailbox (in Outlook), they see that message as unread?

Answer 1

As far as I know, Outlook doesn’t natively support such a capability.

1. As was mentioned in a comment, your life might be easier if you didn’t have multiple users sharing a mailbox.  But I guess if this is something like [e-mail] or [e-mail], it might be the best way to do it.

It’s not clear from your question whether you want every message to be read by everybody, or whether you want every message to be handled by somebody, so, if person A reads a message and doesn’t handle it, persons B and C will know that the message hasn’t handled it.

2. If you want every message to be read by everybody, your best bet may be to use different software.  Many years ago I used Lotus Notes, and I recall that it had a capability like this.
3. If you want every message to be handled by somebody,
   • Train your users to manually mark a message as unread if they read it and don’t handle it.
   • Create a “Handled” folder, and train your users to manually move messages to that folder when they’ve been handled.
   • Investigate the possibility of automating one of the above options with VBA.