Similar to having an assistant that helps you manage your incoming paper mail, another person, known as a delegate, can receive and respond to email messages and meeting requests and responses on your behalf. You can also grant the delegate additional permissions to read, create, or change items in your Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox.


What does Delegate Access do?

Delegate Access goes beyond just sharing access to your folders. Delegates are granted additional permissions, such as creating email messages or responding to meeting requests on your behalf. See Manage another person's mail and calendar items to learn how delegates can perform these tasks.


As the person granting permission, you determine the level of access that the delegate has to your folders. You can grant a delegate permission to read items in your folders or to read, create, change, and delete items. By default, when you add a delegate, the delegate has full access to your Calendar and Tasks folders. The delegate can also respond to meeting requests on your behalf.


What are the delegate permission levels?


Reviewer     With this permission, the delegate can read items in your folders.


Author     With this permission, the delegate can read and create items, and change and delete items that he or she creates. For example, a delegate can create task requests and meeting requests directly in your Task or Calendar folder and then send the item on your behalf.


Editor     With this permission, the delegate can do everything that an Author has permission to do and additionally can change and delete the items that you created.


Make someone my delegate

A delegate automatically receives Send on Behalf permissions. By default, the delegate can read only your meeting requests and responses. The delegate isn’t granted permission to read other messages in your Inbox.


  1. Click the File tab.
  2. Click Account Settings, and then click Delegate Access.
  3. Click Add.
    • If Add doesn’t appear, an active connection might not exist between Outlook and Exchange. The Outlook status bar displays the connection status.
  4. Type the name of the person whom you want to designate as your delegate, or search for and then click the name in the search results list.
    • Note: The delegate must be a person in your organization's Exchange Global Address List (GAL).
  5. Click Add, and then click OK.
  6. In the Delegate Permissions dialog box, accept the default permission settings or select custom access levels for Exchange folders.
    1. If a delegate needs permission to work only with meeting requests and responses, the default permission settings, such as Delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages sent to me, are sufficient. You can leave the Inbox permission setting at None. Meeting requests and responses will go directly to the delegate's Inbox.
      1. Note: By default, the delegate is granted Editor (can read, create, and modify items) permission to your Calendar folder. When the delegate responds to a meeting on your behalf, it is automatically added to your Calendar folder.
  7. To send a message to notify the delegate of the changed permissions, select the Automatically send a message to delegate summarizing these permissions checkbox.
  8. If you want, select the Delegate can see my private items checkbox.
    • Important: This setting affects all Exchange folders. This includes all Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, and Journal folders. There is no way to grant access to private items in only specified folders.
  9. Click OK.
    • Notes: 


      Messages sent with Send on Behalf permissions include both the delegate's and your names next to From. When a message is sent with Send As permissions, only your name appears.


      Once you add someone as a delegate, they can add your Exchange mailbox to their Outlook profile. For instructions, see Manage another person's mail and calendar items.