Learn how to mark an email as Private in Outlook

Learn how to mark an email as Private in Outlook">

Conrad Murray
06 March, 2016

Tagging a message as private (this doesn’t prevent sharing or printing)

If you just want to let people know that you’d like them to treat your email as private, you can tag it as such. This doesn’t stop them from forwarding or printing your message. Instead, it includes “ Please treat this as Private” at the top of your email:

However, nothing prevents them from forwarding or printing that message. To restrict what recipients can do with a message you send, you have to use Information Rights Management (IRM) – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638140(v=exchg.150).aspx

You can easily mark an email as Private by simply going to the Options in the new mail message on Message Tab and the Tags section, but wouldn’t it be easier to do it “one click” from the Ribbon. On the Ribbon, you only have Follow Up, High Importance and Low Importance as quick click shortcut, however on the Calendar Ribbon the Private Button is available! – How annoying.

So, how can you add a Mark as Private Button to the Ribbon / Quick Access Toolbar

First up you need to Open Outlook then follow these steps.

Use ALT+F11 to open the Macro Editor
Import the attached file (ToggleSensitivity.bas)

This file contains the following:

Sub TogglePrivateSensitivity() Dim objCmdBar As Office.CommandBar Dim objButton As Office.CommandBarButton Dim bResult As VbMsgBoxResult If ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olPrivate Then ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olNormal bResult = MsgBox("This email is NOT Private", vbOKOnly, "Privacy Settings") Else ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olPrivate bResult = MsgBox("This email is Private", vbOKOnly, "Privacy Settings") End If End Sub

Save and Close
Open a New Email
Right Click and empty space on the Ribbon
Choose Customize the Ribbon
On the right Side, under Customize the Ribbon make sure that Main Tabs is selected
Right Click the Check Box Enabled New Mail Message select Add New Group
Right Click New Group (Custom) and call it Toggle Privacy
Now, on the left under “Choose commands from”
Change the Drop down to Macros
Find your Macro probably called something like Project1.TogglePrivateSensitivity
Click and choose Add >> from the middle divider
Rename this as well and call it Toggle Privacy and choose the Padlock Icon
Click OK and you’re done

Conrad Murray

Conrad Murray is a Microsoft Certified IT consultant working in IT for over 20 years specialising in the Messaging arena and in particular Office 365 and previously Microsoft Exchange On-Premises and IBM Domino. Working with like minded colleagues now delivering very large scale complex migrations from Office 365 to Office 365 (tenant to tenant), Lotus Notes and On-Premises Microsoft Exchange to Office 365.