How to Find Your Email Settings in Windows Registry

Outlook keeps tons of email settings (enabling Cloud access, hiding favorites, showing Bcc, and more) in the Windows Registry. Here's how to find out where your Outlook settings are so you can edit them.

Find Your Outlook Settings in the Windows Registry

To find your Outlook settings in the Windows Registry, open the Registry Editor and find the Outlook directory.

1. Open the start menu and search for regedit.

2. At the top of the Registry Editor window, there is a location field. Type HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\ and press Enter.

3. On the left side of the Editor under the Office directory, select your Outlook version's directory. If you have Outlook 365, Outlook 2019, or Outlook 2016, you're on version 16.0. If you have Outlook 2010, you're on version 14.0

4. In your Outlook directory on the left side of the screen, open the Preferences directory. On the right side of the screen, your Outlook settings registry entries appear.

5. Double-click an entry to modify an entry. Entries are set to either 1 or 0, which corresponds to either on or off, respectively. Changing a 1 to a 0 changes a setting from on to off and vice versa.

6. To back up registry entries, click File and then select Export. Make sure your Outlook branch (the Outlook directory you've been working in) is selected, and choose a name and location for your backed-up registry file.