Adding hyperlinks to an Outlook email that open a specific file or folder

This makes it super easy for an Internal Customer to just Ctrl + click to access a file that is at the end of a long journey through mutually accessible folder on a company's network share.

This is the step-by-step that I use that actually doesn’t take long despite the number of verbose steps. If you just want a folder to open instead of a specific file, you can follow steps 1-3 + 11-15.  Steps 4-10 allow you to make a link that directly opens a specific file within it’s native program.

To make this proccess even simpler, there’s a free plug-in you can install.  This saves you the steps 3-12 below.  DETAILS on this plugin are after these vanilla instructions who want to be able to do this natively in Windows. 

These instructions are for a vanilla Windows XP install.

1. Press ÿ > R (run) and type the path of the network drive [e.g., \\na.follett.lan\tdata\TetraDoc\ for the TetraDoc] or use My Network Places to locate the file share (use a link that utilizes the generic \\na.follett.lan\ reference if available or at least the server name [i.e. grnvtetfpsv01] – DO NOT USE A MAPPED NETWORK DRIVE LETTER – in case someone has it mapped differently or logged in w/o network resources)
2. In the resulting window, browse to the location of the file that you would like to send a link to.
3. Make sure the FULL path is displayed in the address bar (you have to turn this view setting on in Tools > Folder Options > View tab – it will remember this setting for all future File Explorer windows  [see screenshot à])
4. Click once on the file that you need to send a link to
5. Click and hold-down a second time on this file for 2-3 seconds and release the mouse button – the file name will be selected – like you want to rename the file.
6. Ctrl-C to the copy the file name
7. Click outside the file to cancel file renaming (be careful not to accidentally delete or change the filename)
8. Use your mouse to put the cursor at the end of the FULL path in the address bar
9. Add a  “\” to the end of the path in the address bar
10. Ctrl-V to paste the file name at the end of the path
11. Using your mouse, click and drag to select the entire path in the address bar with the appended file name
12. Ctrl-C to copy
13. Paste this entire path it into an Outlook message,
14. Use your mouse to select it all of it.
15. Click Insert Hyperlink button (I don’t think this button is on the default toolbar – you should add it by right clicking on the toolbar and selecting customize | Insert > Hyperlink [see screenshot])  he Insert Hyperlink button converts the selected path into a hyperlink if it’s selected and in the \\servername\share\filename format.

FYI, you cannot add hyperlinks to a calendar appointment – or any non-HTML formatted Outlook message.

Send to Toy | Send To > Clipboard (as Text)

The plugin mentioned earlier is called SendToToys and you can find it here - http://www.gabrieleponti.com/software/#sendtotoy.  It eliminates steps 3-12 by allowing you to right-click on a file in Windows Explorer and select S that adds “Send To > Clipboard (as Text)” to your contextual, right-click menu when you right click on a file in Windows Explorer.end To > Clipboard.  This copies the path which you can paste into your message and link with the Insert Hyperlink button.  Configure it to use UNC format for network resources and you can use it from any Windows Explorer window.

BallyHelp \ Inserting a Hyperlink to a file or folder in an Outlook Mail Message by nickballinger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at ballyhelp.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://ballyhelp.blogspot.com/2009/11/permissions.html.

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