how do i find outlook temp files

I never post Discussions, but I am grateful for the help locating my file "lost" in an Outlook Temp file. I tried to find it on my own for an hour. Then I downloaded and used EasyFind (program from a company called Devon Technologies), it worked simply, instantly and brilliantly!! Thanks for the suggestion, I highly recommend this.

Your wife deserves a medal. I was in danger of losing both something I had worked on and saved regularly for hours and my sanity.

Spotlight most definitely not find documents that are in this temporary folder.

I can see there are a few other documents that I worked on yesterday and had given up hope of ever seeing again. I thought I had a bug or was doing something wrong.

Now if only it is possible to stop anything ever being saved in that useless folder again.

Many, many thanks to your brilliant wife for solving it and to you for posting.

It's in Outlooks options, under File Locations.

Unfortunately, that's not correct. There is no "File Locations" preference in Outlook for Mac. That preference is in Word, however there's no option there to relocate Outlook Temp files.

If you really want to make sure you never ever save anything there, there's a "nuclear" option, which is to LOCK the ~/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/Outlook Temp/ folder (just do a Get Info on that folder and click the Locked checkbox) so that you can't open any attachment in Outlook without manually saving it first. Once you do that, if you try to open an attachment from a message in Outlook, it simply won't open, forcing you to manually save it wherever you like before you can edit it.

I'm so grateful for this answer. I just edited a document for the day, but didn't realise I'd saved it to the Outlook temp file (even though it was saved under a new name). I couldn't find it in Word, and didn't know how to access the temp file. There were tears and the gnashing of teeth ... all is well now, thank you. :-)

Hi all. I tried all of the various solutions suggested in this long, long thread and did not have success. But here's what I did that ultimately worked:

1. I started from outlook and opened an email with a Word attachment, and doubleclicked the attachment so it opened.

2. I saved the file in word (making no change to the location or name or anything).

3. I then went to the 'file' tab in Word and picked 'Properties' and there in the 'General' tab was the location. I highlighted and copied the location.

4. I went to Finder and under the Go tab I picked 'Go to Folder' and pasted in the location from step 3 above

5. And there it was! I also dragged the resulting Outlook Temp folder over to the side of the finder window so it is always there.

Hi barryfromchestnut hil,

As I comprehend your query, i.e. you are getting trouble to find "outlook temp" files on your MacBook air for Mac OS X (10.7), it’s quite easy to make visible hidden Temp files in Outlook for Mac. For this modus operandi, just you have to follow few steps which have clearly mentioned on the below blog.

By visiting on this blog link , you can easily resolve your query:

Source code: http://www.blogs.olmtopst.com/how-to-unhide-outlook-temp-folder-on-mac.html

Hope it helps out you with resolving your query.

gaberry32 wrote:

thanks! that did it.....but all of this makes me wonder at how Apple OS has a reputation for being more intuitive. i'm not seeing that, especially from this issue. Sigh.

Microsoft wrote Office, and chose the dumb locations for its files, yet you blame Apple. The proper way of dealing with MS Office weirdness ex is not to use Office, instead of blaming Apple for it.

good point. i moved away from using a Dell because of the silliness of Microsoft, like the "dumb locations" you mentioned. That said, I was always able to find those files regardless of their location without having to hold down any combination of keys. This trick reminds me of the mainframe days where only the old dogs (like myself) knew the commands to get the results we wanted - not very useful for the typical or casual user.

The posting from youngjohn on Jan. 12, 2015, was perfect ... as most of the other thread suggestions (while helpful at one point) don't seem relevant anymore.

Why Office chose such an esoteric, deeply buried, hidden folder location for temp files like this is bizarre.

Thanks, youngjohn!

After reading the entire thread, following the instructions, I couldn't get to my file. I did not have the locations listed (I'm running outlook for mac office 365)

Finally, I found the solution by opening another attachment from outlook and then "file - save as". This gives me the location of the temp folder. The file is in my private directory, which was hidden. So then I opened the terminal app, and typed in sudo chflags nohidden/private

I entered my password, and opened finder. there it was!

Navigated to the folder where the outlook temp directory was - about 6 levels deep, and found the file.

This worked for me! Whew, I was in panic mode when I couldn't find my file after 6 hours of editing. Thank you so much.

But -- now my question is, can we change the location so this is easier to find????

Barry, I have the same problem! Did you get answers?

Which version of Outlook?

Microsoft Outlook... I was sent an Excel file as an attachment. I saved it but not in my documents. Only later did I realize it was in my Outlook temp folder.

Microsoft Outlook What? 2008, 2010, 2011? there are many versions.