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Links from New Outlook desktop app open in container tab by default but ideally shouldn't

  • 9 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by Penguinoid

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Hi all!

I am using Firefox Multi-Account containers with Firefox 120.0.1 (64-bit) and the New Outlook desktop client with Windows 10(*). I have more than one Office 365/Outlook account, so I use different containers for each account.

Whenever I click on any link in New Outlook, it opens in one of my Firefox containers rather than in a default No Container tab.

Unfortunately, it opens in a container where I am logged into a different Office365 account than the one I use for the desktop client. This means any Office or organisation-specific links fail to work unless I copy and paste the link across.

Is there some way to force Outlook to open these tabs as No Container?

Thanks, penguinoid

(*) I'm using a university owned/managed computer and they've disabled the option to update to Windows 11

Hi all! I am using Firefox Multi-Account containers with Firefox 120.0.1 (64-bit) and the New Outlook desktop client with Windows 10(*). I have more than one Office 365/Outlook account, so I use different containers for each account. Whenever I click on any link in New Outlook, it opens in one of my Firefox containers rather than in a default No Container tab. Unfortunately, it opens in a container where I am logged into a different Office365 account than the one I use for the desktop client. This means any Office or organisation-specific links fail to work unless I copy and paste the link across. Is there some way to force Outlook to open these tabs as No Container? Thanks, penguinoid (*) I'm using a university owned/managed computer and they've disabled the option to update to Windows 11

All Replies (9)

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You will need to unassign Outlook from the containers so it doesn't "Always open this in a Container".

Manage Containers > container > Manage Site List... > Outlook > Delete

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Hi,

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately, the site list is empty for all containers. This makes sense, given that I want to be able to open office.com pages in different containers depending on which account I want to access. For some reason, 'Limit to designated sites' was enabled for the General profile, but no sites were listed. I disabled this option, but it didn't seem to influence anything.

I should note that *any* webpage opened from the Outlook desktop app opens with the wrong container, since they open via an outlook.office.com 'Safe Links' redirect link. I don't have any problems with opening outlook.office.com links from within Firefox, but I just noticed that it affects any links open from other applications (including Word and Acrobat Reader).

However, it seems that the problem is not exclusive to Outlook, and that it only affects outlook.office.com links. Links to other pages opened from within Word and Acrobat open normally in a new General tab, as would be expected.

Thanks! (Reposting, since my initial reply seems to have vanished when I tried to update it...)

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Does it still happen with all your extensions disabled?

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Thanks for the reply. Oddly, this doesn't affect the container outlook.office.com links from other apps open in.

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OK, now I am completely confused. I noticed today that some sites open from Outlook as expected (not in a container), and others open in the a container. I am not sure why, since all links in Outlook open via an outlook.office.com 'Safe Links' redirect link.

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See how a clean profile behaves by installing Developer Edition (without signing in to your sync account) and setting it as the default browser.

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Honestly, this is the reason I keep going back to Chrome. I have a minimum of two profiles for work (two identities) in addition to a bunch of aws account containers. If I open a link for one identity and it goes into a non-recently-auth'd container, I receive our SSO login prompt. I HAVE to be able to specify a default container.

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phil.stphns said

Honestly, this is the reason I keep going back to Chrome. I have a minimum of two profiles for work (two identities) in addition to a bunch of aws account containers. If I open a link for one identity and it goes into a non-recently-auth'd container, I receive our SSO login prompt. I HAVE to be able to specify a default container.

Hi Phil, in Firefox, Container Tabs are a feature used within a single profile. They are a cookie/data isolation feature, unrelated to online accounts. Although you can use the Multi-Account Containers extension to assign a site to a specific (Firefox) Container, it sounds like that isn't sufficient for your application.

You might want to replicate your multi-profile setup in Firefox. Unfortunately, there's no toolbar button for this -- it's implemented through an obscure page, and you need to create the additional desktop shortcuts manually. Hopefully the following article will get you started, and feel free to ask follow-up questions in a new thread.

Note that Sync will merge data across Firefox profiles if you sign both of them into the same Mozilla Account with Sync enabled. I suggest keeping your new Firefox profiles signed out as you experiment.

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That's effectively what I'm doing too: I have the multi-account containers add-in, and I use it both to keep three MS Office 365 accounts logged in simultaneously, and to keep Facebook/Instagram separated from everything else.

Effectively, if I want to open a link in a specific container, I have to copy the link, manually open a new tab in that container, and paste the link in. This is not exactly a hardship.

It's only a nuisance when it opens a tab that I expect to be open in the default profile (no container) with a secondary one for no apparent reason...