Marking email as Private

Marking email as Private

Tagging a message as private (this doesn’t prevent sharing or printing)

If you just want to let people know that you’d like them to treat your email as private, you can tag it as such. This doesn’t stop them from forwarding or printing your message. Instead, it includes “Please treat this as Private” at the top of your email:

However, nothing prevents them from forwarding or printing that message. To restrict what recipients can do with a message you send, you have to use Information Rights Management (IRM) – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638140(v=exchg.150).aspx

You can easily mark an email as Private by simply going to the Options in the new mail message on Message Tab and the Tags section, but wouldn’t it be easier to do it “one click” from the Ribbon.  On the Ribbon, you only have Follow Up, High Importance and Low Importance as quick click shortcut, however on the Calendar Ribbon the Private Button is available! – How annoying.

So, how can you add a Mark as Private Button to the Ribbon / Quick Access Toolbar

First up you need to Open Outlook then follow these steps.

This file contains the following:

Sub TogglePrivateSensitivity()
    Dim objCmdBar As Office.CommandBar
    Dim objButton As Office.CommandBarButton
    Dim bResult As VbMsgBoxResult
    
    If ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olPrivate Then
        ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olNormal
        bResult = MsgBox("This email is NOT Private", vbOKOnly, "Privacy Settings")
    Else
        ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Sensitivity = olPrivate
        bResult = MsgBox("This email is Private", vbOKOnly, "Privacy Settings")
    End If
End Sub
  • Save and Close
  • Open a New Email
  • Right Click and empty space on the Ribbon
  • Choose Customize the Ribbon
  • On the right Side, under Customize the Ribbon make sure that Main Tabs is selected
  • Right Click the Check Box Enabled New Mail Message select Add New Group
  • Right Click New Group (Custom) and call it Toggle Privacy
  • Now, on the left under “Choose commands from”
  • Change the Drop down to Macros
  • Find your Macro probably called something like Project1.TogglePrivateSensitivity
  • Click and choose Add >> from the middle divider
  • Rename this as well and call it Toggle Privacy and choose the Padlock Icon
  • Click OK and you’re done