attachments in outlook for mac greyed out

Mailboxes hosted Office 365 dont have these formatting limitations and sync absolutely everything that is being stored in the Exchange mailbox in Outlook.

Tip Top 20 Books Add-ins More Quick Tip Index Random QA About Formatting and attachments disabled for Notes section of Appointments, Contacts and Tasks When adding something in the Notes section of an Appointment, Meeting, Contact or Task item, I noticed that the Format Text tab is completely greyed out and also most of the Insert tab.

I always used to be able to add Rich Text to this field and add pictures and other attachments to it but now it no longer seems possible.

The Attach File button actually does seem to work but I cant access the files anymore after attaching.

What is causing this and how can I re-active it all again It sounds like you are using an Outlook.comHotmail account connected via Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) in Outlook 2013.

In this case, saving Rich Formatted Text in the Notes field of Appointments, Meetings, Contacts and Tasks isnt supported.

This is not a limitation of Outlook 2013 but the Outlook.com service simply doesnt support formatting is the Notes field; They only support Plain Text.

While you can add attachments, they dont actually sync with Outlook.com either and are hard to retrieve as they wont show up in the Notes section anymore even though they are still successfully attached.

There are of course several workarounds which you can consider when you need to make elaborateformatted notes to an item or add attachments.

That is one mighty greyed out Format Text tab Outlook.com via EAS vs.

Outlook Hotmail Connector While it might be perceived as a new limitation in Outlook 2013, it actually isnt.

Exchange ActiveSync is the new method in Outlook 2013 to sync with Outlook.comHotmail accounts.

In previous versions of Outlook, this was done via the additional Outlook Hotmail Connector add-in.

With the Outlook Hotmail Connector, you could indeed add Rich Text Formatting to the Notes section of Appointment, Meeting and Contact items (synching Task items isnt supported with the Outlook Hotmail Connector).

Adding and opening an attachment was a breeze as well as they showed in the Notes section.

However, for Outlook Hotmail Connector accounts, the formatting and attachments in the Notes section also never synchs back to the Outlook.com servers, let alone between devices.

This information only exists locally Therefor, in Outlook 2013, they completely disabled the Format Text tab and most of the Insert tab to make it more clear that formatting isnt supported and to prevent potential data loss.

Note: Sadly, disabling the remaining items on the Insert tab just for EAS accounts proved to be more troublesome which is why the Attach File, Outlook Item and Business Card buttons are still enabled.

Rich Text Formatting workarounds There isnt a way to make Rich Text Formatting to work again for these items in EAS mailboxes but there are some alternatives you could consider for the items you want to include Rich Text support for: Use OneNote Linked Notes Click on the OneNote icon to create a linked note in OneNote for that Appointment or Contact to store your (more elaborate) Rich Text Notes for these items in.

However, the links could break for these items when you need to reconfigure the account or also use it on another machine.

Therefore, it might be best to create a separate Outlook Notebook in OneNote with a Calendar, Contacts and Tasks section (tab) to store your Rich Text notes in.

You can even store attachments to these items.

A OneNote App (see section OneNote alternative) is also available for all the major smartphones and tablets so you can still sync the information between all you devices.

Use a pst-file The limitation is only for items stored in an EAS mailbox and not for items stored in pst-files.

The obvious downside is of course that these items will no longer sync with Outlook.com and thus also no longer with other devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Use an Exchange mailbox Rather than using the Outlook.com service to go cloud based, you could also consider using Exchange Online of Office 365.

Attachments In Outlook For Mac Greyed Out