Home Page tab not available in Folder Properties

The Folder Home Page feature has been a deprecated feature since the release of Outlook 2007 and developers have been encouraged not to rely on it anymore for their solutions.

The October 2017 Security Update of October 2017 deactivated the feature in Outlook 2010 and later to fix a vulnerability.

If needed, you can still enable the Home Page feature by setting the appropriate Registry value. There are 3 different Registry values which can be set so you can target where the Home Page feature gets enabled again.

However, it is recommended to look at alternatives when possible.

The Home Page feature is no longer enabled by default.

Home Page usage, vulnerabilities and alternatives

While you shouldn’t use Outlook as a browser, the Home Page feature allowed you to show a web page often with active content from Outlook or another application which integrates itself with Outlook. Examples are;

• Outlook Today.
• Business Contact Manager (BCM).
• Corporate website with links to various resources.
• Custom Dashboards with the Outlook View control to display multiple folders on a single page.
• Other Dashboard applications.

Outlook Today still works but there are alternatives for this too.

When you were using a custom web page with links to other websites, it is recommended to use the Favorites/Bookmarks feature of your Internet browser. If you want them in Outlook, then you can add the links in the Shortcuts Navigations in Outlook (CTRL+7) by dragging the website icon (favicon) from the Address Bar in Internet Explorer and dropping them on the Shortcuts label in Outlook. This also works for Files and Folders.

For the other usage needs, the Home Page feature needs to be re-enabled again via one or more of the methods described below. Be aware that doing so reduces the security hardening of Outlook and your computer could be compromised when a Home Page folder is pointing to a malicious website.

Method 1: Set the Home Page for a Default Folder

If you want to set the Home Page for any of the default folders, you can create the following path in the Registry and set the URL value to the web location.

This will not re-enable the Home Page tab for this folder but will set the Home Page URL directly.

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\WebView\<folder name>
Value name: URL
Value type: REG_SZ
Value: https://internalsite

The default folder names that you can use are;

• Calendar
• Contacts
• Deleted Items
• Drafts
• Inbox
• Journal
• Junk E-mail
• Notes
• Outbox
• RSS
• Sent Mail
• Tasks

By creating the appropriate keys and values in the Registry, you can still set a Home Page for a default folder.

Note 1: When you are using a localized version of Outlook, you do not need to translate the folder names. Use must use the English names instead.

Note 2: Corporate Administrators can also set these values via Group Policy;
User Configuration-> Administrative Templates-> Microsoft Outlook-> Folder Home Pages for Outlook Special Folders

Method 2: Enable the Home Page feature for all folders in Outlook

If you want to re-enable the Home Page tab again in Outlook, you must create the EnableRoamingFolderHomepages value in the Registry.

Note: Setting this value will re-open the Security vulnerability!

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Security
Value name: EnableRoamingFolderHomepages
Value type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1 

Download Registry File: EnableRoamingFolderHomePages.zip

The Home Page feature can be re-enabled again via the Registry.

Optional: Enable the Home Page feature for folders in additional Data Stores

When you need to set a Home Page for a folder that isn’t part of your default mailbox, then you must set the EnableRoamingFolderHomepages value as instructed above but also the following value in the Registry;

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Security
Value name: NonDefaultStoreScript
Value type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Download Registry File: NonDefaultStoreScript.zip