Remove MS Exchange Public Folders from Mail.App

Oct 11, '05 05:11:00AM

Contributed by: rotaiv

In an older hint, I explained how to avoid Mail.App checking Exchange Public Folders by linking the folder to /dev/null. While this tip works to some extent, it was never an ideal solution I was comfortable deploying to all of our Mac users. Recently, this has posed a problem for our Tiger users, who have to click 'OK' multiple times to avoid permission errors when Mail.App tries to poll all of the public folders.

Just recently, I was told of another way to completely remove Exchange Public Folders from appearing when using Mail.App (or any IMAP client). This is not exactly a 'Mac OS X' hint, as it involves making a change in Windows Active Directory. Therefore, you'll have to coordinate with your network administrators and request this change. Since I am also the Network Administrator, I was able to make this change myself ;).

Here's what I did:

  1. As a Domain Administrator, you have to run the "Active Directory Users and Computers" MMC snap-in.
  2. Find the user account you wish to change and select "Properties".
  3. Select the "Exchange Features" tab.
  4. Select "IMAP4" then click "Properties..."
  5. Un-check "Use protocol defaults."
  6. Un-check, "Include all public folders when a folder list is requested."
  7. Click "OK" twice to save changes.
After a few minutes, and after closing and opening Mail.App a few times, my "Public Folders" completely disappeared (I'm not sure the exact sequence required). The beauty of this solution is that this only affects "IMAP clients," so when I use the full PC Outlook (or even the web-based Outlook client), I can still access the public folders.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051007051931489