Summary: Sharing one email account across two Windows user accounts isn't always easy, but it is possible depending on what email program you use.
My husband & I share the same computer. I haven't been able to set up Outlook Express so he can access mail when he is logged on. He has to log on as "me" to read mail messages. We have just one email address at present. Should he not be able to access the inbox from the Microsoft Internet Explorer tool bar when he is logged on?
The short answer is yes we can make that work. But it's not really how Windows XP or Outlook for that matter expect things to behave.
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Windows XP is truly a multi-user operating system. That means that each user who can log in has a completely separate collection of settings. They have a different desktop, different shortcuts, different menus, a different "My Documents" folder, and for most applications, a completely separate set of settings.
Outlook Express is definitely one of those applications. Each user under Windows XP has their own set of settings in Outlook Express. Log in to Windows XP as yourself and you'll see your settings. Log in to Windows XP as your husband and you'll see a completely different set.
And therein lies the seeds of our solution.
Step one is simple: for each Windows XP user account you want to use the same Outlook Express settings you'll log in and configure Outlook Express the same way. In your case that means using same email account, names, addresses, passwords, and what-have-you.
After doing that, you'll both be able to send and receive email on the same account, but you'll still have separate mailboxes, and each of you will not easily be able to see the mailbox of the other.
If that's ok you can stop reading here. You're done.
To have multiple configurations of Outlook Express share the same mailboxes we'll have to configure them to all point to the same Store Folder. From your question I assume you've already got email working when you log in as yourself, so we'll find out where that message store is and use it for your husband as well.
Logged in as yourself in Outlook Express, click on the Tools menu, Options menu item, Maintenance tab, and then finally the Store Folder... button. It will tell you that "Your personal message store is located in the following folder:". Copy down that folder name.
Backup the contents of that folder. For now just copying the contents somewhere else will do.
Log in as your husband and then in Outlook Express go to the same Store Folder... setting in options. This time press the Change... button, and use the browse control to locate the folder you copied down when you were logged in. Once you've found it, click on it, click OK, and then OK your way back out of the options dialog.
Along the way Outlook Express will tell you that this setting will not take effect until you exit and restart Outlook Express. Do that and your husband should now be able to see the same mail folders you do, as well as being able to send and receive email on your shared account.
Article C1920 - April 7, 2004
Ok, this is rather complicated. My parents and I share a family e-mail account and we both have our personal e-mail accounts. I have set up outlook 2003 to access both my private and family e-mails addresses on my windows account. Now my parents can also set up outlook 2003 to access both their private and family e-mails addresses on their windows account, just like i did. This form shows who we both can view our family e-mail account with outlook 2003 in our different windows accounts. However, is there a way we can do this while keeping our private e-mail accounts separate. The first solution to come to mind would be to have a shared .pst file both our outlooks could access, and each have our own .pst files for personal use. To do this, outlook would have to deliver e-mails from separate e-mail accounts to separate .pst files. Is it possible for outlook to do this? If not, is there another way to share one e-mail account between different windows accounts while keeping other e-mail accounts private?
Posted by: cbris at November 7, 2006 3:12 PMThat's going to be difficult. I think your muiltiple PST solution could work - you should try using message rules (tools, rules and alerts) to deliver incoming messages to the appropriate inbox. By default Outlook delivers to the single, primary inbox, but you can then use rules to move things around automatically. Good luck!
Posted by: Leo Notenboom at November 8, 2006 9:28 AMI am using Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 . I have tried what you have suggested but I cannot seem to be able to browse for the store location. The problem is this. When I'm in my XP screen I can see into all the other users application and data files but when I'm in one of the other users screens I cannot see into mine or any of the other users. I tried making all users administrators but it does not work. It doesn't matter if I'm in windows explorer or just trying to use the browse function of the store location in Thunderbird. Because I can't see into their application and data files I cannot change the store location. Can you help?
Posted by: John at June 23, 2007 2:28 PMI have a variation on this problem: my wife has a POP3 account and uses Outlook Express and I want to share the POP3 account on my computer as a separate mailbox. Can this be done? Could I use Outlook on my machine while she uses Outlook Express on hers?
Posted by: Pierre at January 21, 2008 4:13 AMAfter reading these posts my problem is still not fixed. How can you set up outlook xpress for two users?
Posted by: Lance at January 23, 2008 6:28 PMIf you create two accounts using all the same info then how does outlook differentiate between the two user inboxes.??????? Is it possible to have two separate users who cannot see the others inbox?
I am trying to set up an existing email account through outlook, i get onto the setting and make it the default but the enter network password keeps coming up when its testing...how do i sort this? Thanks
Marianne
Posted by: marianne at February 12, 2008 5:40 AMCan two people at two remote sites log in to the
same hotmail account ?
thanks,
Posted by: Bobq1 at May 26, 2008 7:33 PMBob
My objective is similar to others herein, but perhaps a variant. My system is WIN/XP-SP3. My wife as her own WINXP login as I do I. For months I have had a configuration that allows me to have the OE6 configuration in my account âseeâ all our email accounts (four) including the one my wife employs.
So in my user login I can see all four accounts and in her login I can see her account, as she only employs her own. In my login, I see four email accounts: email-1, email-2, email-3 and email-4. In her account I can see email-4
Now for the saga as OE6 went belly up for some inexplicable reason. And while I have some measure of skill and tinkered for a while, I could not deduce a suitable fix.
In desperation, I loaded and activated the Windows Live Mail software and then activated all four email accounts in my user login space. (Yes, along the way, I recovered all emails from the OE DBX files via the DBXpress software product.)
Next I logged into my wifeâs account but could not access any files with the recovered emails. As a matter of fact WLM would not allow me to activate an already activated email account in her login space indicating that it could not change the registry. Yes, I played with the Store Folder option in WLM. Along the way I saved and copied emails and also moved all the identities into a common space on a disk and into an area other than C:\Documents and Settings\user name\. The new store is I:\WLM Store, with sub-folders for all four email accounts.
At this moment, I can see my three email accounts in my login space, but I must log off my user id and login to my wifeâs user id to see and access her email account.
Is there a solution path for me or is the nature of WLM that nothing will work?
Thanks much.
Ted
Posted by: Ted T at November 26, 2008 2:06 PMI have configured Outlook XP for two email accounts. I have setup everything with the necessary login and passwords. My test messages worked. But, after I log off and log back on, it asks me for password every time it tried to send and receive. Why?
Posted by: Marty at December 9, 2008 1:25 PMI tried this approach outlined for sharing an email account on XP but in my case for Vista. Everything worked fine up to the last item which is to browse to locate the folder. The problem is the folder is in the other users name and Vista won't let me go there. Suggestions?
Posted by: Dudley Johnson at May 14, 2009 11:40 AM