Outlook 2007: Clean Up Using Command-line Switches
Contributed by Rob Rogers 
Tagged: Microsoft Outlook There are times when maintaining Outlook can be an overwhelming experience. Not only do you have to manage the massive amounts of email that can accumulate in your inbox, you also have to manage Search Folders, reminders, subscriptions, outdated rules etc. You can utilize Outlook’s command-line switches to help clean things up and get things running the way you want them to.
1. Close Outlook.
2. Press WinKey+R to bring up the Run dialog box.
3. Input “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE” followed by a space and then the switch that you wish to run. If your path is other than the default, input it instead (remember to use the quotes).
Switches you can use to clean up your Outlook are:
- /cleanfinders – to remove Search Folders from the Microsoft Exchange mailbox.
/cleanfreebusy – to clear and recreate free/busy information. (Note: To use this switch, you must be able to connect to the Exchange server)
/cleanprofile – to remove invalid profile keys and regenerate default registry keys.
/cleanreminders – to clear and recreate reminders.
/cleanrules – to delete rules on the client and server.
/cleanserverrules – to delete rules on the server only.
/cleansharing – to remove all subscriptions from Account Settings. (This will not remove any downloaded content)
/cleanviews – to restore default views, custom views are removed.
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Mikehayward said on October 3, 2008
of course, you could just type “outlook.exe” before the switch :-p
david said on October 8, 2009
Here are the available command line switches for Outlook 2007:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/hp012185891033.aspx
Suresh said on April 8, 2011
“Outlook.exe” /cleanfreebusy works fine, thanks all
Kalpana said on July 7, 2011
How to find the free and busy time for the user who has been scheduled for a meeting; so that we can reschedule it accordingly
Stevehk said on July 29, 2011
I have a problem with one of my users. We are on an Exchange 2010 server with the client running Outlook 2007. There are 4 locations and each is setup the same way as mentioned above. However, we upgraded directly from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and I am seeing this bug occur more frequently.
I have a user who tries to plan a meeting in Calendar in Outlook 2007. When they add a person(s), any person(s) to the meeting, the user right clicks the name they added for planning a meeting but nothing shows up. No available times or anything for that matter. There is no way for the user to see availability for time to schedule them for a meeting. They only get hash marks, nothing else.
With Office 2007, I have installed the latest updates and even remoted to the user’s computer who is having this issue and used the following command in the run line:
“C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12OUTLOOK.EXE” /cleanfreebusy. Outlook 2007 opens but nothing happens, and the user still gets the same problem in Calendar in Outlook 2007.
Please, I am out of ideas and hope anyone out there can help.
Thanks.
Steve