Preventing users from using Outlook local folders

[nessts]

Hi, has anybody tried blocking the use of local folders in Outlook 2016?
I have found this setting defaults read com.microsoft.Outlook HideFoldersOnMyComputerRootInFolderList
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and tried creating a plist with just that set to true, and then converted the profile with mcxToProfile.py then deployed the mobileconfig through MDM but the setting is not set nor is it blocked from being set.

Any help would be appreciated if anybody has done similar.

[jason_bracy]

Make sure that you are deploying the config on the User Level, not the Computer level.

[scottb]

I would ask here:MacAdmins/Microsoft-Office

Or page @talkingmoose

[mm2270]

I think the issue is that with Office 2016 apps being sandboxed, the preferences are not stored in the standard location. That particular setting is actually now in ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Outlook/Data/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Outlook.plist

You might need to recreate the Config Profile from that plist and not the one in ~/Library/Preferences/

[nessts]

@mm2270 Just so you knonw I do not have that plist in Library/Preferences when I run the defaults read it finds the sandboxed version. So hence why I was hoping it would work. The old way. thanks for the feedback

@jason.bracy I did a userlevel config. thanks for the double check though.

[Josh_Smith]

@nessts I just tried this and it appears to be working well for me:

Plist: com.microsoft.Outlook.plist (name is important per mcxToProfile documentation)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>HideFoldersOnMyComputerRootInFolderList</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

mcxToProfile command:

./mcxToProfile-master/mcxToProfile.py --plist ./com.microsoft.Outlook.plist --identifier HideOutlookLocalFolders --manage Always

Installed Profile locally, but should be same from MDM:

profiles -I -F ./HideOutlookLocalFolders.mobileconfig

Result:
The "Hide On My Computer folders" box is checked. The GUI allows me to uncheck it, but the local folders do not appear, and the box is checked again as soon as you reopen the preferences window. I cannot overwrite the setting with defaults either....the profile is working.

[jason_bracy]

Hey guys, just curious... What is the advantage of using the mcxToProfile.py instead of just uploading the .plist to the Custom Settings payload of a Configuration Profile in Casper?

[Josh_Smith]

@jason.bracy I'd never used mcxToProfile before, I just tried it because it was mentioned in the post and I don't have a JSS available to me at the moment. I like it, nice tool.

If creating custom profiles occasionally in the JSS I would keep doing it that way because it is easy and you get a signed profile. It looks like mcxToProfile was created to be a conversion utility (as the name implies). It's a command line tool so there are big advantages if you are going to automate config profile creation.