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Moving Outlook customization from one machine to another

Outlook has a file like Word’s normal.dot - it’s named normalEmail.dotm.  It is a default template for email messages.  An easy way to find it on a Windows 7 machine is:

Open Windows Explorer and enter in the address bar:  %appdata%\microsoft\templates.
(Full path/location is:  c:\users\profilename\Appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates)

Copy the normalEmail.dotm from one machine to any other that needs it to keep user from needing to re-do customizations.

For Ribbon/Quickaccess toolbar customizations, one can export/import a .exportUI file – steps below:

1. Open Outlook
2. File tab > Options > choose Customize Ribbon OR Quick Access Toolbar (you can also right-click Ribbon & choose Customize Ribbon)
3. Bottom right corner next to “Customizations:” choose Import/Export button
4. Choose Export all customizations > click Save to save the file

To import that file on another machine:

1. Open Outlook
2. File tab > Options > choose Customize Ribbon OR Quick Access Toolbar (you can also right-click Ribbon & choose Customize Ribbon)
3. Bottom right corner next to “Customizations:” choose Import/Export button
4. Choose Import Customization file > find the file & click Open

That should get a lot of people’s customizations that they want to transfer from one machine to another – normalEmail.dotm may actually hold those toolbar settings also so the export/import steps may not be necessary.

 

Last Updated: June 20, 2011