These instructions assume the following:
- An understanding of how to send an email mail merge through Microsoft Word (Video Tutorial)
- Sender has full delegate access to the shared mailbox
- Sender is using the Outlook desktop application on a Windows system
You may be familiar with the shared mailbox for your department appearing as a second mailbox in your Outlook when you log in as yourself. Any mail merge created from your normal account will default to your main account as the sender, even if the shared mailbox is visible.
To have a mail merge send from a shared mailbox, you will need to create a second Outlook profile specifically for the shared mailbox so that this shared mailbox is the default sender for the mail merge.
- Close Outlook completely, if open.
- Open the Windows Control Panel
- Select User Accounts
- Select Mail (Microsoft Outlook)
- Select Show Profiles. Most likely you will have just one called "Outlook" which is the profile associated with your employee account.
- Select Prompt for a profile to be used then select Add
- Enter the name of the shared mailbox for the Profile Name then select OK
- Select Manual setup or additional server types then select Next
- Select Microsoft 365 and enter the full email address of the shared mailbox then select Next
- A Microsoft Sign in window will appear. Enter your own employee email address! You must authenticate as yourself, not as the shared mailbox.
- Once the setup has completed, uncheck Set up Outlook Mobile on my phone, too then select Finish
- Select OK on the profile window to close it
- Open Outlook. It will now present a prompt to choose which profile you would like to open Outlook with. Select your shared mailbox.
With Outlook open using the shared mailbox profile, you may now open your MS Word mail merge document and continue through the mail merge process.
When you are finished, remember to close Outlook and reopen it to return to your main employee profile.