Hi.

Situation: 5 mails with different number of attachments form the same customer.

Open the first mail with 2 attachments, rightclick attachments, save as default X:\customers, choose subdirectory customerXYZ, and save files.

Open the 2nd mail with 2 attachments, rightclick attachments, save as, and default location is again X:\customers. Ups.

Open the 3rd mail with one attachment, rightclick attachments, save as, and again the default location is X:\customers.

Open the 4th mail with 2 attachments, rightclick attachments, save as... and bingo default save location is as it should be X:\customers\customerXYZ. Nice.

Open the Fifth mail and Again the default location is X:\customers. So, when you save 2 or more attachments, default location goes one directory up. Save one attachment and the default save location stays where it should be. This user receives up to 40 mails a day from the same customer with 1 or more attachments each, and she's naturally not very pleased. Does anyone know how to solve this?

Hi,

We have a method to force Outlook to choose the default path when saving attachments:

Important Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.

Press Win + R, type "regedit.exe" in the blank box, press Enter.

Browse to HKEY_CURRENT USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\Options. (x.0 is your Office version, for Outlook 2007 it is 12.0, Outlook 2010 = 14.0, Outlook 2013 = 15.0)

Then add a String Value named "DefaultPath", in the Edit String dialog box, type the path, including the drive letter, to the folder that you want to use for your Outlook saved items in the Value data box, and then click OK. Quit Registry Editor.

Then Outlook will always use the default path to save your attachments.

Regards,

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Su

Hi,

Thanks for the answer, but I already tried this. It just changes the default directory for the first save. The problem is the number of attachments. If you save 2 or more attachments, for the next save, it suggest the save directory one level up from the last save. If you save one attachment, in the next save, it correctly suggests the directory, in which you saved the previous attachment.

I've tried this on a domain server, and I've tried this on a local computer. 

An example: Create a directory on your C: drive named test and a subdirectory to this named outlooktest, and make this default directory in registry.

From a Webmail or another pc, send a mail with 2 attachments to your pc, a mail with 1 attachment and oen with 3 attachments.

Now on your pc first open the mail with 2 attachments and save them. Default save location is correctly C:\test\outlooktest.

Then open the mail with 1 attachment and save it. Default save location is now C:\test.

Finally open the mail with 3 attachments. Deafult savelocation is now C:\test\outlooktest.

If you had another mail, you would see, that the next default save location is C:\test.

So - save 1 attachment and the default directory is correct for the next save. Save 2 or more attachments, default directory goes one step up.