In Outlook, when you click on a hyperlink, there is a very basic feature that warns you if the software thinks the location could potentially be unsafe. It still gives you an option to continue if you trust the source of the hyperlink.
Unsafe Location/Hyperlinks In Outlook
This is a generic safety feature that avoids going to unsafe locations unintentionally through some hyperlinks. And generally, it is a good idea to not continue, unless you recognize the source and are absolutely sure there’s no risk.
But unfortunately, certain hyperlinks are often considered as a potential security concern by Outlook. The most common example includes a hyperlink to a local file or folder stored in your computer. It also applies to the shortcuts in the “Shortcuts” menu bar if those lead to the local file/folder.
This may not affect some users that much, as it is possible to simply click on “Yes” to continue and ignore the warning. However, if you constantly need to access such links that are flagged as potential security concern, you may want to turn off the warning altogether.
It must be clearly noted that choose to disable the warning only if you are sure that the warnings are for the locations that are clearly safe, such as a folder in your own computer. And if you later click on some ambiguous link from within an email, Outlook will not show you any warning. So, before you proceed, think about if unsafe location warning by Outlook is really a big issue for you that hinders you with your work. If not, then we suggest keeping the warning enabled.
It can only be done through registry editor in Windows, for which you need administrative privileges. If you are not an administrator, you will not be able to make changes in registry editor.
How to disable It
Now that you have understood the risks and are confident about it, lets see how to disable this warning permanently.
- Go to Registry Editor in Windows. Click on Windows start button and type “Registry Editor” and open it. If you cannot see it that way, press Control + R to start the “Run” command and then type “regedit.msc” to open registry editor.
- Inside the registry editor, go to this location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common
- For Office 2007 users, it will be inside: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common
- For Office 2016, 2019, and 365 users, it will be inside:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common - Inside ‘Common,’ you will find a ‘Security’ key. If you cannot find it, you can create it. Right click on “Common” folder and go to “new -> Key” and name it “Security”
- Then on the right hand side, create a new entry. Right click on an empty create -> New -> DWORD value
- Name the new entry “DisableHyperlinkWarning” and press enter.
- Then right click on the entry and click Modify. Inside the value data, enter ‘1.’ (0 means the entry is disabled and 1 means it is enabled. And since entry is about disabling warning, 0 means the warning will show up and 1 means warning will not show up. If you want to enable the warning later, you can either delete this key or modify it and give it a value ‘0.’)
- Click “OK” and close the ‘Registry Editor”
- Restart Your computer.
We hope this works for you in removing the Outlook generic warning about a potentially unsafe location. Only make this change if you frequently use hyperlinks withing Outlook for local folders and the constant warning is tedious for you. Otherwise, the safest option is to keep the warning enabled to not click on some potential threats unwillingly.