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OSX & Mac Office Team: Please Be Kind

Recently I opened a Word document from Outlook. I worked in it for a while, tracking changes, etc. Then I did a "Save As...". The prevous three Word documents I had saved automatically went to my Desktop. However, because this one originated in Outlook, I didn't notice that the destination folder was set to "Outlook Temp".

Needless to say, I went looking for it. Lo and behold, Word didn't have any recollection of this being a recently-opened document. So I couldn't open it from Word.

Very lame Word. Very lame.

Suspecting something was amiss, I opened another document from Outlook and did a "Save As..." and then noticed that the save folder was set to "Outlook Temp".

No problem, I thought. I'll just go to that folder and fetch my file. Actually, this turned out to be a problem.

I searched in vain for "Outlook Temp" via Spotlight to no avail. I searched for the file name in Spotlight. Nothing. I then went back to the Save As... window to see if Finder would behave nicely like its Windows counterpart and let me copy/drag files out of that interface. Nope. I could see my file; grayed-out and seemingly inaccessible.

Finally, I searched Google for information about this. Fortunately, I found some help in the Apple forums (no help from Apple, mind you because they don't care about support or documentation): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3286580?start=0&tstart=0

If you have upgraded to Lion, the Library is no longer viewable. Here's how to access it:

  1. Open finder
  2. Go to the "GO" drop down menu and hold down the option key. (next to the command or apple key)
  3. The "Library" option will appear between the "Home" and "Computer" options in the same "GO" drop down menu
  4. Click on "Library" and you are in..then you will find "Cache" and then "temporaryitems" and Eureeka!!!  The outlook temp folder is in there and your troubles are over!!!

Very lame OSX. Very lame.

Oh, and if you've already closed Outlook, you're screwed because that folder will automatically be purged on application quit.

It's the little things that make or break the UX.

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