The article explains why hyperlinks may not be working in Outlook and provides several solutions to fix the issue. These methods will let you open links in your Outlook emails again with no problem, no matter which version you use - Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 or lower. Just imagine this.
@Outlook guys can confirm known issue (on forums): can't copy/paste URL from chrome to outlook for mac. Running 15.13.1. Productivity killer — Nick Seguin (@nickseguin) June 10, 2016.
You have always opened links in Outlook just fine, and then all of a sudden hyperlinks stopped working and whenever you click on a link embedded in an email, you end up getting the error. In Outlook 2010 or 2007, the error message is as follows: This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator. If you have Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016, the message is different though its meaning is as vague and unclear as before: Your organization's policies are preventing us from completing this action for you. For more info, please contact your help desk. Another possible error is this: General failure. The URL was: The system cannot find the file specified.
If this is the problem you have run into, this article will help you quickly resolve the issue. You will also learn why hyperlinks do not work properly in your Outlook so that you won't stumble twice on the same stone. Why cannot I open links in Outlook any longer? The main reason of hyperlinks not working in Outlook is the default Internet browser not registered (properly) in your operating system. Typically, this issue comes up after uninstalling Google Chrome or changing the default browser from Internet Explorer to either Chrome or Firefox. Mind you, the default browser might be changed even without your notice by some misbehaving add-in or application that installs Chrome / Firefox along with its own files and makes it the default Internet browser unless you remove the tick from the corresponding checkbox. And naturally, that option is not very noticeable, so anyone can easily overlook it during installation.
An evident example of such programs is Adobe Flash Player that may install Chrome both during the first installation and updates, so be sure to uncheck that option on the next update to avoid the problem with hyperlinks in your Outlook. Well, this is the most typical cause, though Outlook links may stop working in some other scenarios and even without any obvious reason at all. Okay, know that you know the cause and consequences, let's see how you can get the problem resolved. How to fix hyperlinks not working in Outlook We will start with the easiest troubleshooting steps that take the least time and effort, so it makes sense to follow the below methods in order and after trying each solution check whether you can open links in Outlook again.
These solutions work for all versions of Microsoft Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2003. Use the Microsoft Fix it tool Luckily for us, Microsoft guys are aware of the 'hyperlinks in Outlook not working' issue and they've already worked out a fix. So, the first thing you should try is download and run Microsoft's Fix It tool for your version of Windows. The fix for Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP is available.
And even if you are 'I will make it myself!' Kind of person, I'd strongly advise that you let Microsoft fix it for you in this particular case. Firstly, because it's a faster way, secondly, because it is much safer and thirdly, if something goes wrong, you know with certainty who to blame: ) So, give it a shot and if the fix has worked for you, congratulate yourself and you can close this page. If you are still unable to open links in Outlook, then please keep reading and try the other methods. Set Internet Explorer and Outlook as default programs.
On Windows 7, you can set the default programs by going to the Control Panel Default Programs click Set your default programs. Choose Internet Explorer in the Programs list and click the Set this program as default link. Find Microsoft Outlook in the Programs list and set it as default too. On Windows XP, you can do the same by going to Control Panel Add and Remove Programs Default Programs Set your default programs.
An alternative way to access the ' Set your default programs' dialog is by clicking Internet Explorer's Tools icon Internet Options Programs tab Set programs. Restart Outlook and check whether hyperlinks are working. If they fail to open again, proceed to the next method. Reinstall Chrome or Firefox If links stopped working in your Outlook after you had uninstalled Google Chrome (or Firefox) while it was set as your default browser, try setting IE as default before uninstalling another browser to prevent the problem. Here is what you do:. Reinstall Chrome or Firefox, whichever was set as your default browser earlier.
The download links along with the detailed instructions are available here:. Set Chrome / Firefox as the default browser.
Check if hyperlinks work in your Outlook. If you can open Outlook links now, then you can safely set Internet Explorer as the default browser. To do this, open Internet Explorer and click the Tools icon Internet options. Then navigate to the Programs tab, and click the Make default button. Click OK and close Internet Explorer. Uninstall Google Chrome or Firefox if you do not need them any longer, and hopefully you won't have any problems with links in your Outlook ever again. Note: Before changing the default browser, close Chrome / Firefox and make sure that no chrome.exe or firefox.exe process is running in Task Manager when you set IE as the default browser.
To open the Task Manager, either press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or right click the taskbar and choose ' Start Task Manager'. Edit the registry manually If hyperlinks in your Outlook do not work any longer after you've uninstalled Chrome, Firefox or any other application (e.g. HTML web editors) that open HTML files by default, changing the HTM/HTML associations in the registry may help. Please be very careful when making changes in the system registry. If you are working in a corporate environment, it might be a good idea to ask your system administrator or IT person for assistance. Anyway, before modifying the registry, be sure to create a system restore point and backup your registry completely, just to be on the safe side. The following step-by-step instructions by Microsoft may be very helpful indeed:.
Now that you have taken the necessary precautions, you are ready to proceed to making the changes. On Windows 7 and Windows 8, click the Start button, type Regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor. On Windows XP, click Start Run and then type Regedit in the Open box.
The Registry Editor will open, and you browse to HKEYCURRENTUSER Software Classes.html. Verify that the Default value of this key is htmlfile. If the Default value is ChromeHTML or FireFoxHTML (depending on which browser you have installed), right click it and select Modify. Change the Default value to htmlfile. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for.htm. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
The alternative way to make the same registry changes is to click the Start button and type the below command directly in the search line on Win 7 or Win 8. If you have an earlier Windows version, click Start Run and then enter the command in the Open box.
REG ADD HKEYCURRENTUSER Software Classes.htm /ve /d htmlfile /f Then enter a similar command for.htm. After making the above registry changes, make sure that. Reset Internet Explorer settings If the problem with links in your Outlook persists, try to reset Internet Explorer settings. Verify that your Outlook is closed. Start Internet Explorer, click the Tools icon and choose Internet Options.
Switch to the Advanced tab and click the Reset button (if you use Internet Explorer 6 or lower, you'll find this option on the Programs tab). The Reset Internet Explorer Settings window will open and you select the Delete personal settings checkbox, then click Reset.
Click the Close button when the resetting process is completed. Be sure to, as we discussed earlier in this article.
Close and then open Internet Explorer anew and after that check whether hyperlinks are working again in your Outlook emails, tasks and other items. Note: If you receive a message on Internet Explorer start prompting you to make IE your default internet browser, click Yes. If you prefer a different browser, you will be able to choose it as default later.
Import a registry key from another computer If recently you have upgraded to a newer version of Internet Explorer, the following registry key may be corrupted or missing: HKEYLocalMachine Software Classes htmlfile shell open command You can fix this by importing it from another healthy computer to the affected machine. Note: You will need to have the administrator rights to be able to import the registry file. Also, please be very careful when performing this operation.
If you make just one tiny mistake when importing the key manually, e.g. Copy it from / to a wrong registry branch, you may have very serious problems on your computer. If this worst scenario happens, be sure to first, so that you will be safe anyway. Okay, now that I've given a word of caution and you heard it (hopefully: ), head over to another computer where Outlook links work just fine and do the following: 1. Export the registry key from the computer that doesn't have any problems with links in Outlook. Open the Registry Editor.
As you remember, you need to click the Start button, type regedit and then press Enter. Find the following registry key: HKEYLOCALMACHINE Software Classes htmlfile shell open command. Right click the command subkey and select Export from the context menu. Alternatively, on Windows 7 or Windows 8 you can switch to the File menu, and click Export. In earlier operating systems, the Export option may reside on the Registry menu. Type a file name that is easy for you to remember, e.g. 'Exported key' and save the registry branch to some folder.
Close Registry Editor. Import the registry key to the problem computer. This step is probably the easiest one we've performed today. Simply copy the exported registry key to the desktop (or any folder) on the affected computer, and then double-click the.reg file. Make sure the Default value of the HKEYCLASSESROOT.html key is htmlfile. To check this, click the Start button again, type regedit to open the Registry Editor, and then navigate to the HKEYCLASSESROOT.html key.
We've done this operations several times today, so I believe by now you are able to do this standing on your head: ) If the Default value of this registry key is other than htmlfile, modify it in the same way as we discussed in. Well, you have spent quite a lot of time troubleshooting this issue and hopefully now hyperlinks in your Outlook work again without a problem. If against all odds the issue persists and you still cannot open links in Outlook, restore your system as the last resort. Do a system restore System restore is a way to undo the resent changes in your computer's system in order to restore it to an earlier point in time.
You can open System Restore by clicking the Start button and typing System Restore in the search field. Then click Enter or wait a bit and choose System Restore from the list of results. In the System Restore dialog window, you can either go with the Recommended restore' option or ' Choose a different restore point' when you know for sure that everything worked fine, including hyperlinks in Outlook. And this is all I have to say on this problem. I do hope you find the article helpful and one of the above methods has worked for you. If hyperlinks in your Outlook emails still are not working, drop us a line in comments and we will try to figure out the cause and make your links open as they should. Thank you for reading!
You may also be interested in:. Re: 'Hyperlinks not working in Outlook?
How to make links open again in Outlook 2013, 2010 and lower'. Your reccomended 1st step (applying the MS fix) worked.
What really P@##%D me off about MS was that I spent 3+ hrs with their on-line and phone support people. In the proccess I traveled to the Philippines, India and a few locations in th U.S.
![Working Working](https://support.content.office.net/en-us/media/173c5898-71d4-430d-b454-1ca3ef0df6a8.png)
And no one told me about the 'fix'. While Outlook may be helpful for a business, I would not reccomend it for home use unless the household has an in-house Tech Support Dept. Thank you again for your help. Thank you, thank you!
In only 5 minutes, I was able to resolve a very annoying and time wasting issue of not being able to click on hyperlinks in Outlook without receiving an error message and then having to copy and paste them directly into Google. This problem had gone on for 3 months and no one had any clue on how to fix it, until I finally took a few minutes to research it on the internet and came to your website. 5 minutes - problem solved with MS Fix It - and I'm a very happy camper again!:). I have an issue that is only affected if Chrome is set to default for hyperlinks. If Firefox or IE are set as defaults, hyperlinks work as expected, if set to Chrome I get a 'Server Execution Failure' error message. This happened after I uninstalled and reinstalled Google Chrome to correct an issue with Chrome in the past. I do not wish to uninstall and reinstall my Office 2007 product as it was a gift from MS for attending a tech show and uncertain if I still have the loader to reinstall it.
Reg settings appear correct for Office, uncertain what to look for in Chrome. 1) When clicking on a hyperlink in an e-mail, I get this Message: 'This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.' 2) We tried by changing default program settings and set program access & computer defaults.
But it doesn’t solve the issue. 3) We tried by resetting IE browser and setting Default Web browser in IE but it doesn’t work. 4) So we found that Google Chrome was installed earlier in system. 5) This issue we found after uninstalling Google Chrome from computer.
6) Whenever we open hyperlink (URL’s) in outlook it was trying to open through google chrome bcz it was selected as default browser in computer. 7) Solution: This issue resolved by re-installing Google Chrome, and selecting IE as a default web browser. Every 'solution' here is for everything except Windows 10. Do we have to sit around waiting for Microsoft to offer a definitive solution after yet another time-wasting update (seven hours on this one). Or get around to correcting the update that caused it!
I have been on pretty well every site referring to this problem going back, it would seem, around five years. I see only complicated work-arounds of uncertain value to all previous Windows products and nothing useful for Windows 10, the premier product. The registry solutions are dangerously complicated for amateurs and do not seem to apply to Windows 10. I just want to be able to link from Outlook to Firefox. Very simple, not ambitious. It should not be rocket science to the point that I am getting very suspicious about the motivation behind all the this. I am wondering whether a dossier might be sent to the competition authorities.
Certainly Google and Mozilla should be asking some questions. If it is not conspiracy, it is incompetence - either way, it has to stop! Can we have a simple definitive solution for Windows 10 and Outlook 2013 that allows simple linking to Firefox, please, and can we have it now instead of waiting another five years. I have Windows 10, MS Outlook 2007 & the Hyperlinks have suddenly stopped working in Outlook. My default web browswer has been Firefox for some years now.
The fix that you can download from MS is not for Windows 10, only lower versions. MS advise going through the troubleshooting route which was useless. I have tried changing my default web browser to IE 11, Goggle Chrome, and back to Firefox - several times for each one! Wasted many hours. Suggestions please? PS I am not competant to edit the registry! Thanks so much!!
I did all of these, not sure which step(s) did the trick, but now my excel URL links (which had stopped working for no apparent reason) are working again. 1 uninstalled Chrome (never used it anyway) 2 changed default browser to IE from Firefox 3 changed registry default for.htm.html.shtml to 'htmlfile' 4 Reset IE settings, deleting personal settings. Maybe just step 4 would've been enough without the others, I don't know, I was desperate and I'm just so happy it's fixed.
Sometimes, users find it difficult to understand and execute Outlook Search with each updated version of the application. If you just upgraded your desktop email client to the latest version, you also might be facing ‘MS Outlook 2016 Search not working’ issues. Since Outlook is a most popular email client being used to send and receive bulk emails in a significant number of organizations as well as a personal level; it must be maintained and upgraded on a regular basis. Note: If you find that problem is related to damage in MS Outlook PST database file then, try to make Outlook error free and to fix “outlook 2016 search not working” Problems. In some cases, the Search algorithm integrated into MS Outlook does not work appropriately as desired. If this is the case, all you need to do is just stay calm and try some resolution methods to fix Outlook 2016 instant search not working error.
When Outlook Search Shows ‘No Results Found’ Status Undoubtedly, ‘Search’ is one of the significant features the application offers. It not only helps to perform a particular search following a defined criterion but also helps to navigate through emails and other mailbox components quite efficiently. The search algorithm might incorporate different kinds of malfunctions such as entirely improper outputs or no/ blank results. When the tool stops functioning properly; it would either display search results up to a particular date or it will show that there are items based on search criteria waiting to be indexed in the output panel. In this case, there could be an error or issue with Windows Indexing services.
There could be many problems in Outlook 2016 responsible for Outlook 2016 instant search not working issue and so are the solutions. Outlook Marked for Indexing Outlook’s Search operation usually comes out with blank results because Outlook 2016 search stopped working on your system. There are possibilities that Outlook might not be able to check its data files for indexing.
However, Microsoft Outlook 2016 provides an easy way to analyze if the mailbox is indexed or not. This can be done by the following steps:.
Go to ‘Search’ option by selecting ‘ File‘, then to ‘Options’ and click ‘Search.’. Click on ‘Indexing Options’ and then select ‘Modify.’. It opens ‘Indexed Locations’ window, you can check if the Outlook data file is being indexed. Alternatively, you can either select the option to index MS Outlook completely, or you can quit the indexing option if desired. Note: In previous versions of MS Outlook 2016, users are allowed to select particular OST or PST files to Index, whereas, in the 2016 edition, you can choose to index complete application. While checking if the Outlook files are being Indexed or not, you must also disable and then enable the application from the ‘Indexing Options’ window. Deselect Outlook by checking the checkbox and close the app.
Wait for 5 minutes and then open Task Manager. Check if Outlook.exe is still running in processes tab. Next go back to select MS Outlook for indexing. Overall, this process helps to fix all root causes of outlook 2016 indexing options greyed out.
OST/ PST Corruption Corruption could be a possible reason behind malfunctioning of the instant Search not showing recent emails feature. Analyze the file and repair it using the. This is the popular ‘Inbox Repair Tool’ integrated with all the versions of MS Outlook email client. In File Explorer window, open ‘This PC’ and then type ‘ScanPST.exe’ in the Search box. Running this tool will repair any existing damaged or corrupted OST as well as PST on the system.
Rebuilding MS Outlook Index Rebuilding the index might compel Search- ‘something went wrong’ to work properly. The procedure to rebuild MS Outlook Search Index is: 1. Click on the ‘File’ menu, select ‘Options’ and then choose ‘Search’ available on the left side of the window. Click on ‘Indexing Options’ button and then click on ‘Advanced’. In the ‘Advanced Options’ window, select ‘Index Settings’ tab and click on ‘Rebuild’ button.
Rebuilding-the-Index Points to Remember. The search feature will not work temporarily, while index rebuilding operation is in the process. It is recommended not to interfere with the application during the process.
The time duration it takes to rebuild indexes solely depends on system specifications, the number of files to be indexed and volume of data each file incorporates. Once the process to rebuild indexes is completed successfully, restart the application and check ‘Search’ functionality.
Though, workaround procedures are always there to recover files from all kind of corruption, these procedures do not ensure the integrity of data. Outlook Mailbox integral components can be lost or deleted accidentally, in case if any mistake occurs.
Moreover, rebuilding Outlook indexes via manual process requires the sound technical know-how. Fix Outlook 2016 Search Issues, not showing recent emails or Indexing Options Greyed out Errors If corruption is the actual reason behind the inappropriate functionality of Outlook ‘Search’ feature; then personal files can be repaired using commercial assistant- software. It repairs PST files and recovers all possible data out of it. Once, the damaged PST file gets recovered, ‘Search’ feature would start working appropriately, after that. The tool can be utilized in many different scenarios. It can either be used to repair the features of the mail application as in the case of ‘Search’ malfunctioning or it can be used to bring PST files in the accessible state if they get damaged or corrupted for any reason. If the Search feature is not working due to a PST file that is encrypted, the tool can also help to resolve outlook 2016 search not working issue completely as it supports encrypted Outlook data file recovery.
In a case of PST recovery, the tool offers to save the recovered Outlook data files to EML, MSG, RTF, PDF and HTML file formats. All of the given files can be accessed by various email clients without any dedicated platform. It is compatible to execute over all the versions of MS Outlook including 2016 editions. Check what the other MVPs and Experts say about this software.