Setting a password in Outlook is good for many reasons. The obvious being that you would have extra security with your email. But that isn’t the only reason why you should want to password protect Outlook. If you have a POP or IMAP email account setup in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, or 2007, then your email is easily accessible by simply launching the desktop or task bar shortcut. This is a problem. If you share your computer with other users, or if you’re at work and simply step away from your desk for a bit, your email privacy is at risk from curious nosy folk nearby. An even more worse case scenario, if you’re computer was stolen then now someone has access to your email, until of course you change the password.
The solution is simple: Password protect Outlook. By doing so, you will have that extra protection to your .pst file (the file Outlook uses to store all data) and you wouldn’t have to worry about your email being read by anyone else other than you. So, how do we password protect Outlook?
To password protect Outlook, you will first need to perform the following:
- Identify your current version of Outlook (2003, 2007, or 2010)
- Close Outlook and any other programs you have open
- If you’re using Windows, go to start, control panel, and click mail
- In mail, select data files, and choose your data file (should be named something like Outlook.pst
OR
- In Outlook 2010 click settings (In earlier versions simply click Advanced)
- Select Change Password…
- Now type your desired password under both New password: and Verify password:
- Click OK, and OK again
- Now close all open windows and attempt to open Outlook
- If you followed the instructions above, you should now be prompted to enter your password
The steps to adding a password to Outlook are pretty much the same for every Outlook version. The key here is find Mail icon in control panel, select your datafile, and click settings or properties. Find Change Password and you should be able to figure it out from there.
