Saving and Restoring Toolbar Settings

When you right-click on a toolbar and choose Customize, you can show and hide toolbars, add and remove commands, and reset the toolbars to their default display. You can also reach the Customize dialog using T ools, C ustomize.

By default, all command bar settings are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat . You might want to make a copy of this file if you make many changes to your command bars. If you need to reinstall Outlook, you can easily restore your customized command bars by replacing the modified file with your copy.

One outcmd.dat file is used for each Windows user account. If you use several Outlook profiles with your Windows account, the custom commands will be available in each Outlook profile.

If you make changes to the command bars and want to restore the default settings quickly, you can delete or rename outcmd.dat . The next time you open Outlook, it creates a new outcmd.dat file and all the toolbars are reset to their default settings.

outcmd.dat is often the cause when Outlook crashes or hangs , so your first troubleshooting step should be to rename it and restart Outlook. Unfortunately, you'll lose all customizations and will have to re-create all of your custom toolbars.