---
title: "Searching Public Folders in Companies"
url: https://lookeen.com/blog/searching-public-folders-in-companies
lang: en
description: "With public folders, every branch office, subsidiary, or location can access the same files."
author: "Carolin Lehmann"
published: 2014-10-01T13:54:04+00:00
modified: 2026-11-11T06:53:06+00:00
---

# Searching Public Folders in Companies

Outlook is an email program from Microsoft that is frequently used by businesses. Outlook helps maintain clarity in daily work routines: primarily, you can use Outlook to send and receive emails, manage contacts, and record appointments in the calendar. However, providing and searching for information in public folders are also tasks where Outlook proves helpful.

## Practical Use of Public Folders

[Find out how you can search public folders more efficiently here!](https://lookeen.com/solutions/outlook-search/search-public-folders)

Especially for companies with multiple branches, Outlook in conjunction with the Exchange Server can be a very practical tool: For example, headquarters can post general inquiries, emails, or documents into various public folders. Any branch connected to the Exchange Server can access and process these inquiries or documents. Through Outlook, all employees can thus always stay connected with headquarters or the main office. This ensures that all branches are on the same information level at the same time and enables timely responses. [Public folders are of course only as public as previously configured.](https://lookeen.com/solutions/enterprise-search/group-policy-gpo) The IT administrator can define access rights for employees via centralized permission management and differentiate between read, create, and modify permissions. Of course, the searchability of public folders is also important: Since public folders usually contain many subfolders, searching for specific information becomes more difficult. Therefore, a clear structure and listing of the folders is essential to reduce difficulties when searching.

## Searching Public Folders with Built-in Outlook Tools is Insufficient

When searching public folders, Lookeen indexes all public folders and can search them simultaneously. Outlook Search, on the other hand, can only search public folders individually. [Try the Lookeen Desktop Search or the Lookeen Enterprise Search yourself for free for 14 days!](https://lookeen.com/download)