How to Access Outlook Temp Folder in Mac OS X

Many Microsoft Office for Mac users may find themselves needing to gain access to the Outlook Temp folder, which is where everything from attachments are stored, to cached version of items that are actively being worked on but that are launched from Outlook as an attachment. For example, if someone emails you a report as an attachment, you open it and are working on it in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and you save it, this saved document which began as an Outlook attachment will usually be in the Outlook Temp folder.

Let’s quickly find out how to directly access the Outlook Temp folder and the files that you may have saved into that directory, whether it’s files you’re actively working on, various email attachments, HTML signatures, images, PDF, documents, or whatever else.

How to Access the Outlook Temp Folder & Outlook Temp Files in Mac OS X

This applies to all versions of Mac OS X with Outlook:

1. Navigate to the Finder in Mac OS X, whether it’s the desktop or a folder doesn’t matter
2. Pull down the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder” (or hit Command Shift G if you prefer keystrokes)
3. Enter the following path:

~/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/Outlook Temp/

4. Click on the “Go” button and you’re now in the Outlook Temp cache folder

The Outlook Temp folder contains attachments and other items that are caches created by and used with Outlook, some of them are user facing and some of them are not intended to be.

You can also manually navigate to the Outlook Temp cache folder if you have made the user Library folder visible in Mac OS X, where it would be in the user Library > Caches > Temporary Items > Outlook Temp directory.

Once you’re in the Outlook Temp folder on the Mac you can find the file(s) you are looking for, whether they’re attachments you have been editing, or want to make a copy of, or whatever else.

Another option of course is to open the attachment in Word or Excel that you were working on, and using the File > Save As option to save a copy of the temp outlook file to another location that is more user friendly.

By the way, this is specifically for accessing the Outlook application temporary folder, it does not apply to an Outlook.com account used in Mail app in mac OS X, because Mail app has it’s own unique and different temporary folders for cache.