How-To Geek
Make iGoogle Your Startup Page in Microsoft Outlook
If you are a Microsoft Outlook user that regularly uses iGoogle as your dashboard, have you ever thought about combining the two? It’s nearly trivial to add your iGoogle page to Outlook and make it the startup page.
Create a new folder by right-clicking anywhere in the folder tree and choosing “New Folder”
Give the folder a relevant name, something like iGoogle works.
Now right-click on the new folder and choose Properties, and then on the Home Page tab, check the box for “Show home page by default for this folder” and put this into the address box:
Of course you can use any web page as your startup page, not just iGoogle.
At this point you should be able to see your iGoogle page by just clicking on the folder.
Set iGoogle as the Default Startup Page
Open up the Options panel through Tools \ Options on the menu, and then choose the Advanced Options button on the Other tab.
You’ll see a setting for “Startup in this folder” with a Browse button next to it. Click that button and choose the iGoogle folder as your startup page.
Now when you startup Outlook, you’ll be taken directly to your iGoogle dashboard (you do have to login the first time).
Thanks to our excellent reader Tim who wrote in telling me to write about this.
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Comments (16)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 02/14/08
nice. now how to get firefox in there as opposed to IE?
That’s great! It’s funny I knew how to do that, but just never thought about it before. Thanks!
Cool! I’m big fans of iGoogle.
Thanks, this is awesome!
Can we get this on thunderbird?? That would be great! And it would even be better if it displayed in firefox instead of IE just as sven said :P
is tthis just for vista or can it be done with xp too.
Great tip – I also had heard about it before, but when I saw the posting, just had to put google in my outlook as I’m there most of the day!
Thanks for the tip.
However, once the page is displayed in Outlook, when I click on an iGoogle tab, I get a 403 Forbidden message:”Your client does not have permission to get URL /ig/setp?et=xwm-TCyj&brand=&bmod=&source=&pid=&ap=&prefid=&url=outlook%3AiGoogle&ct=1 from this server”
If I click on the iGoogle folder in the folder tree, the new tab shows up fine. Any ideas? Is that url parameter indicating that it’s trying to fetch an object of type “outlook”?
i like igoogle home page better it helps me on my spelling its a little better for me
to me things are a little better to get to
Why bother creating the folder? You can just click on the mailbox name and set the home page there.
Can you use this with XP Professional ?
This is really nice… bit I would like to have google chrome be the browser and not IE… is that possible to change??
Hmmm, it worked great for me when I was using xp & outlook 2003 on our business system. After upgrading (?) to vista & outlook 2007, a script error rears its ugly mug. I usually have to click through 3 script error screens just to view the page. When I move to another page, it happens all over again. ???
Thanks for the tip!
Is it possible to customize the view in this folder? I use Outlook for work stuff including the To-Do bar which I have turned on. But when I click on iGoogle, I’d like to not see the To-Do bar since it just takes up space. Any way to eliminate from there without eliminating it from other views?
What a great site! I’m loving it here!
I use iGoogle for my personal home page. Sometimes, when I sign off, I clear out my cookies and when I sign on again I have to retype my sign in information. If I don’t clear out my cookies, I have no problem. It’s no big thing, but it’s irritating. Is there some way to keep my home page with out having to sign in each time??? Mike
i would like to change my google homepage background to the theme of sweet dreams theme picture how do i do it send me an email at marine.currie1 (at) gmail.com this theme sweet dreams is one isaw but know i cant install it how do you thank you william currie