Allow Only One Instance of Microsoft Outlook

Allow Only One Instance of Microsoft Outlook 

Microsoft Outlook is the Office product that allows users to gain access to their emails, contacts, and other information. It is used by many businesses and most times people set it to automatically start when they log into Windows. Users can also open multiple instances of Outlook, either on purpose or by accident, which can cause confusion and wasted resources. This default behavior can be easily modified with a small change to the program shortcut. To avoid multiple Outlook instances, simply add the “/recycle” switch to the command line target of the Outlook’s shortcut.

1. Right-click the Outlook shortcut in your start menu, select “More…”, then select the menu item “Open file location”.
2. Right-click the Outlook shortcut in the file folder, and click on “Properties”.
3. Select the “Shortcut” tab.
4. In the Target field, append “/recycle” to the end of the command.
5. Click OK to exit the property dialog

The next time you start Outlook, it will only allow one instance of the program. If the user attempts to restart a second instance, nothing appears to happen.