How to reopen microsoft outlook’s conversation view after sorting a folder

Rob Woodgate is a writer and IT consultant with nearly 20 years of experience across the private and public sectors. He’s also worked as a trainer, technical support person, delivery manager, system administrator, and in other roles that involve getting people and technology to work together. Read more.

Microsoft Outlook’s Conversation View is a really useful tool. If you sort or group your emails by column, though, you’ll lose it. Thankfully, there’s a simple (albeit, less than obvious) way to get Conversation View back.

When you turn on Conversation View, it groups all of your emails by conversation, regardless of where they’re located in your mailbox. So, if a reply comes into your inbox, Outlook will show all of the previous emails in that conversation in a thread, even if you’ve moved them to other folders.

When you change the view settings, though, you can lose Conversation View, and it’s not obvious how to get it back. The image below shows what it looks like when Conversation View is enabled.

However, when we click the “From” column header to sort the folder by the senders, the Conversation View options are grayed out, and the folder is no longer in Conversation View.

So, how do you get Outlook to display your emails in Conversation View again?

Some people just change the folder back to the default view. This is effective, but it also means they have to reset the view to add or remove columns, reset any formatting, and redo anything else they want the folder to have.

Unfortunately, many people just don’t use Conversation View because it’s not obvious why it stopped working—especially if they clicked on a column header without realizing it.

To get Conversation View working again, just right-click any column header in Outlook, and then select Arrange By > Date (Conversations).

And just like that, Conversation View should be back in working order!

Rob Woodgate is a writer and IT consultant with nearly 20 years of experience across the private and public sectors. He’s also worked as a trainer, technical support person, delivery manager, system administrator, and in other roles that involve getting people and technology to work together. Read more.

Microsoft Outlook’s Conversation View is a really useful tool. If you sort or group your emails by column, though, you’ll lose it. Thankfully, there’s a simple (albeit, less than obvious) way to get Conversation View back.

When you turn on Conversation View, it groups all of your emails by conversation, regardless of where they’re located in your mailbox. So, if a reply comes into your inbox, Outlook will show all of the previous emails in that conversation in a thread, even if you’ve moved them to other folders.

When you change the view settings, though, you can lose Conversation View, and it’s not obvious how to get it back. The image below shows what it looks like when Conversation View is enabled.

However, when we click the “From” column header to sort the folder by the senders, the Conversation View options are grayed out, and the folder is no longer in Conversation View.

So, how do you get Outlook to display your emails in Conversation View again?

Some people just change the folder back to the default view. This is effective, but it also means they have to reset the view to add or remove columns, reset any formatting, and redo anything else they want the folder to have.

Unfortunately, many people just don’t use Conversation View because it’s not obvious why it stopped working—especially if they clicked on a column header without realizing it.

To get Conversation View working again, just right-click any column header in Outlook, and then select Arrange By > Date (Conversations).

And just like that, Conversation View should be back in working order!

Let’s say you have added a Size column in the appointment lists, turned off the Reading Pane, arranged messages by a customized criteria, or other settings before, and you need to restore the initial folder views at present. How do you deal with it? This article will talk about a couple of tricks about restoring initial folder views in Microsoft Outlook.

If you want to restore folders’ initial view, you can apply the Reset View feature in Microsoft Outlook 2010 or later versions.

1. In the Navigation pane, click to select a folder that you will reset its view, click View > Change View, and specify a view mode from the drop down list you will restore to initial view.

2. Click View > Reset View. See screenshot:

A warning dialog box will come out. Click the Yes button in the dialog box.

Then the selected folder is reset to its original view at once. If you want to apply this view to other folders, please go on the following steps.

3. Click View > Change View > Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders on the View tab. See screenshot:

4. Then in the Apply View dialog box, please (1) check the mailboxes and their subfolders in the Apply View to These Folders: box, (2) it’s optional to check the option of Apply View to subfolders, and (3) click the OK button.

One click to show total numbers of items in all folders on the Navigation Pane in Outlook

Normally, Outlook shows the numbers of unread items in each folder on the Navigation Pane. But, Kutools for Outlook’s All Folders Show Total Number of Items feature can help you show the total numbers of items in all folders with only one click. Click for 60-day free trial without limitation!

The following steps will guide you to restore initial folder views in Microsoft Outlook 2007 at ease.

1. Click to open the folder you want to restore its initial view, and click View > Current View > Messages or other view as you need.

2. Click View > Current View > Customize Current View.

3. In the popping up Customize View dialog box, please click the Reset Current View button at the bottom. See screen shot:

4. In the coming warning dialog box, please click the OK button.

5. Click the OK button in the Customize View: Messages dialog box to exit it.

There is an alternative method that can restore the initial views of all folders at once.

1. Close the Microsoft Outlook, and open the Run dialog box with pressing the Win + R keys.

2. Enter the outlook.exe /cleanviews in the Open: box, and click the OK button.

Then Microsoft Outlook opens with restoring the default views of all folders immediately.

Last reviewed on July 22, 2019 36 Comments

Applies to: Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010

Below are some common questions about Outlook’s conversation view.

Short answer: You can’t.

Long answer: This should only happen with an Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange Server 2007 mailbox. Messages retrieved using POP3, IMAP, or using Outlook Connector/EAS, or received by Exchange 2010 or 2013 servers should be organized as separate conversations even though the subject is identical.

Sorry, you can’t add messages to a conversation.

Unfortunately, you can’t remove messages from conversations either. Outlook’s POP, IMAP, Outlook Connector/EAS message transport and Exchange Server 2010/2013 add a conversation property to the message when messages arrive and uses this value to group messages by conversation. When the conversation property isn’t available (in Exchange 2003/2007), Outlook uses the Subject field.

To enable or disable Show Conversations, switch to the View tab and check or uncheck the Show Conversations option. Expand Conversation Settings to fine-tune the conversation display.

Show as conversations is only available when you group by date. If it’s grayed out, you need to switch to the Date grouping. When Show as conversations is enabled, the Date group is labeled Date (Conversations).

In the Arrangement group select Date. A dialog box will open, asking if you want to arrange by conversation in all folders or this folder only, as well as an option to cancel. This dialog box comes up each time you enable or disable Show as Conversations.

When you upgrade from an old version of Outlook, Upgrade to Conversations is set automatically during the first run process after upgrading, but administrators can use group policy to block the use of conversations.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\
DWORD: UpgradeToConversations
Data Value: 1 (use conversations) or 0 (don’t use)

If your computer doesn’t use group policy, check the UpgradeToConversations value under the Outlook key at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Setup
DWORD: UpgradeToConversations
Data Value: 1 (use conversations) or 0 (don’t use)

By default, when you reply an email message you have received in other personal created folder in Outlook, the replies will be saved in the Sent Items folder automatically. For easily getting the information of the received and the relevant replies emails, you can save the replies with the original email in the same folder. In this tutorial, we will show you how to save replies with original message in same Outlook folder in details.

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Save replies with original message in same folder in Outlook 2010 and 2013

In Outlook 2010 and 2013, you can do as follows to save replies with original message in same folder.

1. Click File > Options.

2. In the Outlook Options dialog box, please click Mail in the left bar, then go to the Save messages section, check the When replying to a message that is not in the Inbox, save the reply in the same folder box. And then click the OK button. See screenshot:

From now on, when you reply an email message in a created personal folder, the replied message will be saved in the same folder with the original emails.

Save replies with original message in same folder in Outlook 2007

If you are using Outlook 2007, please do as follows.

1. Click Tools > Options.

2. In the Options dialog box, click the E-mail Options button under Preferences tab. See screenshot:

3. Then click the Advanced E-mail Options button in the E-mail Options dialog box.

4. In the Advanced E-mail Options dialog box, please check the In folders other than the Inbox, save replies with original message box, then click the OK button. See screenshot:

5. Click the OK buttons to close all dialog boxes to finish the setting.

Notes:

1. This function can only work in the personal folder you created by yourself;

2. After enabling this function, the reply message will be saved in the same folder with original email.

Outlook Inbox view suddenly changed and can’t reset to how it was

My Outlook Inbox view kept changing on its own suddenly.

I tried changing and resetting the view to the default Compact version, but it does not work.

1 Answer

What’s the version of your Outlook? (File > Office Account > About Outlook). Please make sure you have upgraded your Outlook to the latest version.
Do you mean you can’t change the view to a default view, or the view change to another view again after you change the view to the default view?
And before the issue occurred, did you do any specific operations, such as install some third-party programs?

As I know, if you configure your account as an Exchange account, the view settings in the outlook client are stored in a data file and synchronized to the mail server. So if you log in to your email account on another device, the settings will be synchronized. It is suggested that you could check if your account was configured in other device.

According your description, I noticed that you have tried to reset the view, as I know, you can go to View tab>Current group>click on Reset View, as shown in the below figure. Please confirm whether you reset the view settings by this method.

If your client is a newer version of outlook, in order to avoid problems as much as possible, it is recommended that you uncheck this option(File>General).

In addition, as I know, there’s such a command to reset the view settings: win+R> type: outlook /cleanviews.(This command will delete all custom view settings. If you need to keep other view settings, please remember to back up.)

If you don’t log in to your account on another device or you don’t change the view on the outlook client on another device, considering the impact of some add ins, It is suggested that you try to start outlook in safe mode(win+R>type: outlook /safe) to check whether it works normally. If this is still the issue in safe mode, it is suggested that you could try to create a new profile(control panel>mail>show profile>new) and add the account for testing to check if there are some differences.

Hope the above help! If your issue has any update, please feel free to post back.

If the response is helpful, please click “Accept Answer” and upvote it.
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Outlook’s conversation settings lead to a more efficient Inbox

Outlook’s conversation settings lead to a more efficient Inbox

Use Outlook’s conversation view to arrange related messages into meaningful groups.

Outlook displays messages as they’re received, but there are ways to rearrange messages. For instance, you can click the Subject or From title cell to group messages by the Subject or From text, respectively. Sometimes this quick fix is adequate, but sometimes it isn’t because the subject text often changes and threads often have responses from more than just one person.

Conversation view

When things are a bit too complex for a quick sort, use conversation view, but don’t stop at enabling the view. To take full advantage of the view, go a step further and apply the settings that will make the arrangement truly efficient.

To arrange messages by conversation, click the View tab and check the show As Conversation option in the Conversations group. Then, choose All Folders or This Folder. The differences are subtle, but Outlook identifies conversations with a small triangle to the left.

To get the most out of conversation view, apply one or more of the settings. To do so, click the Conversation Settings dropdown. Perhaps the setting that provides the most insight and coverage is the one passed over the most. Be sure to check the Show Messages From Other Folders option, even if all your mail is in the Inbox. That way, Outlook will display messages you sent and stored in the Sent folder. These messages are an important part of the conversation but otherwise omitted from this view.

The Show Senders Above Subject option won’t add much to the view if your Inbox displays one-line headers. If you’re using multi-line headers, this option reverses the order of the From and Subject columns.

The third option, Always Expand Conversations is another setting that most users will want to use. Otherwise, you might lose context while browsing.

By applying the first and third settings, you completely change the view. You can see at a glance that Mary initiated a particular thread and that I (Susan) responded. That’s why you need to include that first setting. If you don’t enable this setting, you’ll see only the original message from Mary.

Many users don’t bother to view Outlook threads as conversations because they don’t seem to get too much from the arrangement. The problem is that they just don’t go far enough-viewing messages as conversations can be helpful, but you won’t always appreciate the real advantages unless you apply the appropriate settings to the conversation view.

A few extras

If you don’t want to use conversation view, you don’t have to. With a message open, you can click the Related dropdown in the Editing group to see a list of all messages related to the current one. This route won’t provide the same flexibility, but it’s handy if you want to avoid conversation view.

When using conversation view, consider positioning the reading pane to the right. Doing so is an efficient way to view all of the messages in the thread quickly. Outlook displays all of the messages in the Reading Pane regardless of its position, but viewing them on the right rather than below displays more text.

In addition, when working in conversation view, Outlook will apply many actions to all of the messages in the conversation, not just the current one. For instance, you can apply a category to a conversation by applying it to a single message. Later, when more messages in the conversation arrive, Outlook will automatically apply the same category to the incoming messages.

Introduction

This article describes how to use the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Object Library or the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Object Library to retrieve a message from the Inbox by using Microsoft Visual C#.

More information

To use the Outlook 2002 Object Library or the Outlook 2003 Object Library to retrieve a message from the Inbox by using Visual C#, follow these steps:

In Microsoft Visual Studio .NET or Visual Studio 2005, create a new Console Application project:

On the File menu, point to New, and then select Project.

Under Project Types, select Visual C# Projects.

In Visual Studio 2005, select Visual C#.

Under Templates, select Console Application.

Select OK. By default, a file that is named Class1.cs is created.

In Visual Studio 2005, Program.cs is created by default.

Add a reference to either the Outlook 2002 Object Library or the Outlook 2003 Object Library. To do this, follow these steps:

On the Project menu, select Add Reference.

Select the COM tab.

On the COM tab, select Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library if you are using Outlook 2003, or select Microsoft Outlook 10.0 Object Library if you are using Outlook 2002.

Select Select.

In the Add References dialog box, select OK.

If you receive a message to generate wrappers for the libraries that you selected, select Yes.

In the Class1.cs code window, replace all the existing code with the following code:

In this code, make any necessary changes where you see the “TO DO” comments.

Press F5 to build and then run the program.

I organize my Contacts folder by Category. Each time when I access that folder, every Category group is expanded, no matter how carefully I compress the Category groups or arrange them.

I prefer to have some Category groups always expanded and others always collapsed.

Is there any way to keep these Category groups collapsed?

Outlook has a View setting how it should handle the expand/collapse state for the Group By function. Most likely this setting is set to “Always expanded” instead of “As last viewed”. If that doesn’t work, resetting the view and rechecking the option might solve it as well.

Outlook can save the expand/collapse state of your groups
but doesn’t do this for all views by default.

Always Expand/Collapse all Groups or use As Last Viewed

In Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007, the By Category view in the Contacts folder (and several other pre-defined views) had the expand/collapse option set to “As Last Viewed”. This basically was a modified Phone List view which had the default set to “All expanded”.

Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 no longer have this pre-defined view (unless you upgraded) as it has the Arrangement Gallery on the View tab to quickly select a Group By field. Instead there is the Phone and the List view. However, these pre-defined views have their default expand/collapse option set to “All expanded”.

So long history lesson short; modify your view’s “Expand/collapse defaults” option:

• Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007
  View-> Arrange By-> Custom…-> button Group By…
• Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013
  tab View-> button: View Settings-> button Group By…

In the bottom right corner of this dialog, you can set the Expand/collapse defaults. By default this is set to “As last viewed” but you also have the option to set it to “All expanded” and “All collapsed”.

Changing the Expand/collapse defaults for the Group By function.

Resetting the view

If the last group state is then still not being reminded correctly upon reentering the folder, then you can most likely fix it by resetting the view for the folder and additionally rechecking the Group By view option as indicated above.

• Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007
  View-> Arrange By-> Custom… -> button: Reset Current View
• Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013
  tab View-> button: Reset View

Rob Woodgate is a writer and IT consultant with nearly 20 years of experience across the private and public sectors. He’s also worked as a trainer, technical support person, delivery manager, system administrator, and in other roles that involve getting people and technology to work together. Read more.

Outlook Online has a Snooze function, just like Gmail. Use it to move items out of your inbox until you’re ready to deal with them and stop your inbox from filling up with emails you don’t need right now.

Gmail’s Snooze option was one of those new functions that was so obvious in hindsight that you wonder why no one did it sooner. You select an email, choose a snooze time, and it disappears out of your inbox, only to reappear as if by magic at the required time. Brilliant!

Obviously, Microsoft thought so, too, because the company has added its own version of Snooze to Outlook Online. If you’re used to Gmail’s Snooze, the good news is that Outlook’s version works in pretty much the same way, except it uses folders rather than labels. Let’s take a look.

You can find the Snooze option on Outlook Online’s toolbar above the Inbox.

Snooze only works in the Inbox, so if you have an email elsewhere that you want to snooze, either move it to the Inbox in Outlook Online or mark it for Follow Up in the Outlook client instead.

Once you have selected an email, click the “Snooze” button to choose when you want the message to reappear.

The default times can’t be changed, so if none of them are suitable for you, select the “Choose A Date” option.

Choose the date and time that you want the email to reappear and then click the “Save” button.

Once you’ve chosen either a default or a custom snooze time, the email will be moved to a new folder called “Scheduled”.

When the snooze time comes around, the email will automatically be moved back into your Inbox and marked as Unread.

If you want to deal with it before then, open the “Scheduled” folder, select the snoozed email, and then click the “Unsnooze” button.

This will remove the snooze reminder, move the email straight back to the Inbox, and mark it as Unread.

That’s email snoozing, Outlook-style. Well, Gmail-style done pretty much identically on Outlook Online, at any rate.

A few years ago I stumbled across a feature of Microsoft Outlook which helps prevent me from missing important emails. Here’s how to use this color trick.

Like everyone these days, I get a lot of emails. A few years ago, I stumbled across a feature of Microsoft Outlook which helps prevent me from missing important emails, namely from my boss or an important customer. If nothing else, it’s a straightforward way to triage your Inbox using color codes.

Organize Your Outlook Inbox Using Colors

The feature I’m talking about is the Outlook Organize. I’m honestly not sure what it’s called, but we’re going with that.

First, let’s Color Code all new emails from the Important Person Red and then Color all new emails sent Only to me Blue. This setup will be handy since emails sent only to me typically means waiting for a response.

1. Open Outlook and click on an email from your Manager (or someone else important).

2. Click Using Colors Tab and verify the remaining settings (To or From, Name and Color); click Apply Color when ready.

2a. From the same menu above, click Turn On to color all emails sent “Only to Me” as Blue (or pick your color).

3. Click the X on the far right to exit the Organize Options.

The changes are instantaneous, and the variations using Colors are limitless.

A great tip when I found it, and I hope you enjoy it. I would love to hear any comments. If anyone has any tips, please let us know here or in our forum.

If you want to change the view, do the following:

1. On the View tab, in the Current View group, click the View Settings button:

2. In the Advanced View Settings dialog box:

Click one of the buttons to change related view settings (explained in more detail in the text). The text next to each button describes the purpose of each:

Columns. – Specify which columns (items of information) are included in the view (another way to customize columns see in Add and remove columns in Outlook). For example, in the mail view:

If necessary, click Reset Current View to return the view to its original default settings.

Five tricks to customize your mailbox view

Group emails in Outlook view

Add and remove columns in Outlook

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Outlook has a great feature that allows us to “ignore” particular email conversations that do not really interest us without asking the sender(s) to remove us from future emails. When we select Ignore on an email message, Outlook deletes that email and it also keeps track of all future emails related to the ignored message. If a future email related to the originally ignored email arrives in our Inbox, Outlook automatically moves these future emails to our Deleted Items folder.

But how about if we no longer want to ignore a particular conversation? Easy! Simply remove the “ignore” status of the email thread using the following steps:

1. 1. Select your Deleted Items folder;

1. 1. Select the email that is currently set to be ignored by Outlook;

1. 1. Click Ignore on the Delete section of the Hometab on the ribbon:

1. 1. If prompted, click Stop Ignoring Conversation:

At this point, the email is automatically moved from our Deleted Items folder to the folder from which the it originated, and future emails for this thread will not be automatically deleted.

We can determine if an email is being ignored by the status of the Ignore button in the ribbon. If the Ignore button is highlighted (as in the screenshot above), the conversation thread on that email is currently being ignored by Outlook.

When we enable the Ignore option on a conversation, a message is created in the Associated Contents table of the Conversation Action Settings folder of our mailbox (which we can look at using MFCmapi for example):

It is important to have the following in mind:

You can keep unwanted conversations out of your Inbox by using the Ignore Conversation feature. Ignore Conversation removes all messages related to the conversation that you select, and moves future messages in the conversation directly to your Deleted Items folder.

You might know a Conversation by the term email thread. A Conversation is the complete chain of email messages from the first message through all responses. The messages of a Conversation have the same subject.

For example, when you send a message to someone and then they reply a Conversation results. In many Conversations, there might be many replies back and forth, or even multiple people all replying to parts of the Conversation.

Ignore a conversation

In the message list, select the conversation or any message within the conversation that you want to ignore.

On the Home tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore .

If you are working from an open message, on the Message tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore.

Select Ignore Conversation.

Note: The Ignore Conversation command in step 3 appears in the Ignore Conversation dialog box. This dialog box doesn’t appear if you previously selected the Don’t show this message again check box.

Stop ignoring a conversation

To stop ignoring a conversation, do the following:

Note: You can only recover an ignored conversation if it is still available in the Deleted Items folder.

In the Deleted Items folder, select the conversation that you want to recover, or any message within that conversation. By default, the Deleted Items folder is arranged by date. To change to Conversation view, select Arrange By, and then select Conversation.

On the Home tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore .

Select Stop Ignoring Conversation.

The conversation is moved back to your Inbox. Future messages are delivered to your Inbox.

Note: The Stop Ignoring Conversation command in step 3 appears in the Stop Ignoring Conversation dialog box. This dialog box doesn’t appear if you previously selected the Don’t show this message again check box.

People with multiple mailboxes or a lot of folders can have quite a busy Navigation Pane and therefore also tends to look after it a bit more.

Some of these people would like to keep everything collapsed for a cleaner and less jumpy Outlook interface. Others like to keep everything expanded so that they can easily reach each folder.

Sometimes it looks like Outlook has a mind of its own and keeps expanding and collapsing your folders whenever it pleases.

How exactly does it behave and how to keep all folders collapsed/expanded during and between Outlook sessions?

While the expanding and collapsing can seem at random, there are 2 basic rules;

• Outlook should remember which folders were expanded or collapsed when you closed Outlook and should also start with this folder state again.
• If a folder is collapsed and a new message is delivered to one of its subfolders, the folder will automatically expand to that subfolder.

Of course, with Outlook, there are a few exceptions to these otherwise simple rules.

Note: As the folder state is being saved when you close Outlook, Outlook shutdown issues can prevent it from being saved so the folder state isn’t remembered when you start Outlook again. To troubleshoot see; Outlook doesn’t close.

Collapsing all folders

To keep the mailbox collapsed even when a new message is being delivered, make sure that your Inbox and other folders that receive email (for instance by a rule) have been added to your Favorites list.

Keep your mailboxes collapsed by
adding its Inbox to the Favorites list.

If your default startup folder of Outlook is your Inbox folder, then Outlook will always expand that mailbox to the Inbox folder even when your Inbox folder has been added to your Favorites list. To counter this, set your default startup folder to Outlook Today.

To set your default startup folder;

• Outlook 2007 and previous
  Tools-> Options…-> tab Other-> button Advanced Options…-> Startup in this folder
• Outlook 2010
  File-> section Options-> section Advanced-> option group: Outlook start and exit-> Start Outlook in this folder

Expanding all folders

IMAP folders will always start collapsed and will remain collapsed even when a new message is being delivered to any of its folders. Setting the default startup folder of Outlook to the Inbox folder of an IMAP account will expand the folder list on startup but could increase Outlook startup time.

To quickly expand all folders, you can use the VBA macro solution Expand all folders from Outlook MVP Michael Bauer. This VBA solution runs at each startup and expands all folders.

If you have a lot of of folders, this macro could take a long time to complete and can be quite a resource hog as Outlook will load the view of each folder. Therefore, I’d recommend to run this macro only once so all your folders are expanded. As Outlook “should” remember your folder state when you restart Outlook, there is no need to run this macro at each startup unless of course you are using an IMAP account.

Bonus Tip: Collapse or expand all groups in your view

By default, Outlook will group your mail into groups named;
Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Two Weeks Ago, Three Weeks Ago, Last Month and Older.

To quickly collapse all these groups use; CTRL – (on Num Pad)
To quickly expand all these groups use; CTRL + (on Num Pad)

Collapsing all your groups is almost like having an empty mailbox.
Hmm, maybe it is better to keep that Today group expanded. 😉

Run actions and sort messages automatically

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Outlook rules are automatic actions performed on incoming email messages. For example, a rule can filter one sender’s mail to a certain folder for you to review later.

Setting up these rules can streamline your inbox and help you become more efficient. Troubleshooting common errors helps you fix broken rules so you can get back to a clean inbox.

Instructions in this article apply to Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and Outlook for Microsoft 365.

Causes for Outlook Rules Not Working

Several different and unrelated problems prevent Outlook rules from running automatically or even disabling rules altogether. Any of these may be the culprit:

• Rules exceed the rules quota established for your mailbox.
• Corruption in send/receive settings file.
• Rules set to run on one computer only.
• Corruption using a POP3 or IMAP account.

How to Fix Outlook Rules Not Working

Because several glitches affect whether Outlook rules run automatically, troubleshooting the problem is the best way to get them working again. Here are some of the things you can try:

Size matters in Outlook rules. In many cases, the size available for all your Outlook Rules will be limited to 64 KB or less. It’s not a problem if you have several simple rules to run automatically, but if you have many rules, or very complicated rules, size could be your problem. Several of the troubleshooting steps included here will help you reduce the size of your Outlook rules.

Edit and rename your Outlook rule. If your rules have lengthy names, editing them to have shorter names could decrease the size of your existing rules.

Delete old rules. Another way to reduce the overall size of your existing rules is to get rid of those you no longer need.

Clear the Client only or on this computer only checkbox. It’s possible that when the rule was created, this setting was selected, which will prevent the rule from working when you access your Outlook account on a different device.

Manage a large number of rules by combining similar ones. Turning several similar rules into a single rule is another way to reduce the overall size of your rules. After you’ve combined similar rules, delete the unnecessary rules.

Rename or reset the SRS file in Outlook. The SRS file contains the settings you set through the Send/Receive dialog in Outlook.

Reset your rules and test your mailbox for corruption if you’re using a POP3 or IMAP account in Outlook. Start by deleting the rule that’s not working, then run the Inbox Repair Tool.

Fix corruption using an Exchange account. Turn on Exchange Cache Mode could give you a smoother experience when you connect to your email account because a copy of your mailbox saves to your computer. This local copy offers quicker access to your email messages and other items.

If you’re using an Exchange account, deleting the rule, disabling Exchange Cache Mode, then recreating the rule could resolve the glitch. After it’s fixed, try enabling Exchange Cache Mode again.

To set up an Outlook message rule, right-click a message and select Rules > Create Rule. Choose a condition and an action to take and select OK. To make email rules in Outlook.com, go to Settings > View all Outlook Settings > Mail > Rules > Add New Rule.

To delete a rule in Outlook, go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts. In the dialog box that appears, select the rule you want to delete, and select Delete.

To edit an Outlook rule, go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts. Check the box next to the rule you want to edit and click Change Rule. Select the change you want to make and follow the prompts.

To remove all your set rules in Outlook, go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts. Place a check next to all the rules and select Delete. To turn rules off without deleting them, uncheck the boxes.

I’m leaving a project and therefor need to transfer the email history, some including attachments, of that project to someone else.

Is there a way to do this without having to forward them individually?

There are a couple of possible approaches here. Which one is best depends on the amount of emails and folders that you are trying to transfer and which mail account type you are using.

Forwarding them manually one-by-one certainly isn’t a recommended approach as that would also remove the original message header and make all those emails appear to be sent by you.

Share a folder within Exchange

If you both reside within the same Exchange organization, you can move the messages to a separate folder within your Exchange mailbox and then grant the new project member permissions to that folder so he or she can copy it.

The other way around is also possible; He or she could grant you access to a folder within his/her own mailbox so you can copy your items to it.

Using a Shared Mailbox, Office 365 Group or Public Folder to copy the contents to will do the trick as well.

To set permissions on a folder, right click on the folder within Outlook, choose Properties and select the Permissions tab. For detailed instructions see: Access or share non-default Outlook folders.

Transfer msg-files

Another way to go would be to drag & drop these messages out of Outlook and into a File Explorer folder. This will create individual msg-files.

You can then zip that folder and send it as an attachment or share it otherwise like via a network share or cloud storage such as OneDrive or Dropbox.

The new project member can then unzip it and move the msg-files back into Outlook via drag & drop as well.

Extra tip! If there are only a few messages to forward, a quicker way would be to select them in Outlook and press the Forward button. This will create a new message with all the messages attached as msg-files. The recipient can then drag and drop them from the attachment field into a folder.

Note: At one point, this method was broken for Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013. Dragging and dropping the msg-files back into Outlook would either create a new message with all the msg-files as attachments or copy the files into the active folder but leave them as msg-files instead of converting them back to actual Outlook items. This issue has been fixed since August 2014 with Hotfix KB2889819 for Outlook 2010 and Hotfix KB2882991 for Outlook 2013. Therefor, make sure that you have all the latest updates applied when you are still facing this issue.

If you are still having drag & drop issues then see: Drag & drop to add attachment no longer works.

Transfer a pst-file

Yet another method would be to copy the messages into a pst-file, disconnect that pst-file from your Outlook, restart Outlook and send the pst-file as a (zipped) attachment. The recipient can then save zip file, extract the pst-file and connect it to Outlook.

1. Create a new pst-file.
   • Outlook 2007 and previous
     File-> New-> Outlook Data File…
   • Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
     File-> Account Settings-> Account Settings…-> tab Data Files-> button Add…
2. Select and copy your items to a folder within the newly created pst-file.
   • The “Copy to Folder” keyboard shortcut is: CTRL+SHIFT+Y.
   • To copy an entire folder at once, right click the folder and choose: Copy Folder.
3. Once the items are copied, disconnect the pst-file from Outlook.
   • Outlook 2007 and previous
     File-> Data File Management…-> select pst-file-> button: Remove
   • Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
     File-> Account Settings-> Account Settings…-> tab Data Files-> select pst-file-> button: Remove
4. Close Outlook. This is important as it will release the lock on the pst-file.
5. Browse to the location of the pst-file, right click on it and choose:
   Send to-> Compress (zipped) folder
   You are of course free to use another compression tool as well.
6. Reopen Outlook and send the pst-file to the recipient or share it otherwise (see the note below).
7. The recipient must first save the zip-file to a folder on his computer and extract it by right clicking it and choosing: Extract All… (or use another decompression tool).
8. The unzipped pst-file can then be connected to Outlook by choosing:
   File-> Open-> Open Outlook Data File
9. Optionally, the contents of this connected pst-file can be moved/copied to the already existing mailbox (similar to step 2) and remove the transferred pst-file from Outlook (similar to step 3 and 4).

Note: When the pst-file is quite large, it can also be shared via a network share or Cloud Storage such as OneDrive or Dropbox. Just make sure that the pst-file isn’t located on a network share or within a Cloud Storage folder when it is being created or otherwise connect to as that isn’t supported and could lead to corruption of the pst-file.

I am wanting to delete a folder which is no longer in use on Outlook 2007.

When i interact with it in anyway, right click, left click, etc. i just get the message showed in this attachment.

How do i get rid of the folder?

Enter to win a a “Don’t Panic” inspired embroidered hand towel

I have had issues before with folders in Outlook 2007, i opened Outlook in safe mode and then i was able to delete the problem folder.

Hold down the CTRL key prior to clicking on the Outlook 2007 icon. This opens it in safe mode.

delete the offending folder

to exit safe mode, close outlook and reopen normally.

Hope this helps.

8 Replies

timetomine.com is an IT service provider.

If you have checked the path to ensure the pst file is in that location still? Then maybe try running the scanpst.exe file which is located in the Office folder in Program Files. You can use this to scan a pst and check if it is corrupt and if so then it attempts to fix it.

It is possible the contents of that folder were moved to an archive that is no longer open in Outlook. Check if you have auto-archiving enabled and if so, where the archive .pst is located. Open the archive and then try to delete the folder.

One other thought. If that does not work, you can start Outlook from Run with the /resetfolders switch. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\OUTLOOK.exe /resetfolders

Then try and delete the folder.

The PST is long gone, i just need to delete the folder which used to open it.

I have had issues before with folders in Outlook 2007, i opened Outlook in safe mode and then i was able to delete the problem folder.

Hold down the CTRL key prior to clicking on the Outlook 2007 icon. This opens it in safe mode.

delete the offending folder

to exit safe mode, close outlook and reopen normally.

Hope this helps.

The PST is long gone, i just need to delete the folder which used to open it.

Delete through the mail profile in control panel, or if that does not work open regedit and navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
Messaging Subsystem\Profiles

I just found a way. I created a folder in deleted items then moved the folder there then emptied the deleted folder.

I have had issues before with folders in Outlook 2007, i opened Outlook in safe mode and then i was able to delete the problem folder.

Hold down the CTRL key prior to clicking on the Outlook 2007 icon. This opens it in safe mode.

delete the offending folder

to exit safe mode, close outlook and reopen normally.

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How do you point out your boss faults in a nice way?

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It Comes Down to This.

32+ years in IT at all levels, and the job search returns this as my best matchJust wow. Way to validate my existence.

Now that the New Outlook is available in the Office Insiders Beta Channel, I really want to try it out but don’t want to use it as my daily driver just yet.

Is there any way that I can install and run the New Outlook and the current Outlook at the same time?

After an update of Office, Outlook now displays the navigation buttons for Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, etc… on the left side next to the Folder List.

These Navigation buttons used to be displayed within the Folder List at the bottom.

Where is the option to move the Navigation buttons back to their original location?

I’m getting some weird graphics anomalies with my screen when using Outlook.

For instance, the screen suddenly turns completely black or white, and when I move over those spaces with my mouse, the Outlook UI starts to appear again but only in those places.

At other times, text in the Ribbon and Folder Pane overlap or folders appear empty even when they are not.

Restarting Outlook fixes it temporarily but I’d like to fix it permanently.

I was recommended to “disable hardware graphics acceleration” but I can’t find that option anywhere.

How do I solve this issue?

I’ve heard about Quick Steps before and see them on the Ribbon in Outlook but I’ve never used them before.

What exactly are Quick Steps and how can they help me with managing my emails?

How do I create a desktop shortcut for Outlook in Windows 11?

We need to make some changes in Outlook which requires administrator permissions.

I logged on as the administrator of the computer, but I still can’t perform the action and make the required changes.

How can I start Outlook as an Administrator on Windows 11?

Now that Windows 11 is available, I’m trying to figure out whether it is safe for me to upgrade to it.

Which versions of Outlook are supported on Windows 11?

Choosing to view a message in a web browser used to open Internet Explorer and display it as a mht-file with all formatting and pictures.

Now when I choose this option, it opens Microsoft Edge but only shows the HTML code of the message and doesn’t actually render the message itself.

With Microsoft (and me) moving away from Internet Explorer, and removing it from Windows 11, how can I properly open the emails in Microsoft Edge or another web browser?

Or is Microsoft going to improve the rendering capabilities in Outlook for HTML emails?

We receive S/MIME encrypted emails which we need to store in a financial or HR database system that is encrypted and protected otherwise itself as well.

As we save the original message, they remain encrypted and can only be opened by the original recipient that has the S/MIME certificate.

Trying to open these messages from the application gives the error;

Is there a way to remove the S/MIME encryption from a message and save it unencrypted?

When adding attendees to my meeting invitation, for some of the attendees, their free/busy status shows as “No Information” in the Scheduling Assistant.

Why is this and how can I make Outlook retrieve this information again for this attendee?

Problem:

You are not able to copy or move any Outlook items by dragging and dropping.

Solution:

As far as we know, this is a software bug that occurs in all versions of Outlook, and it is not related to CodeTwo or any other third-party software. We have discovered a few solutions that may restore the drag & drop functionality in Outlook:

• Ensure that you are using drag and drop to copy/move items of the same type.
  The drag & drop feature works only when you copy/move items between the folders of the same type. Therefore, you cannot copy e.g. calendar items to a folder with emails.
• Press the ESC key repeatedly.
  Make sure that the Outlook window is active, and press the ESC key several times. After that, you should be able to use the drag & drop feature again.
• Use the Folder List view.
  Try to change the view to Folders (Fig. 1.) and try dragging and dropping your items again. We have discovered that Outlook behaves differently depending on the view type.
  Fig. 1. Changing the view in Outlook.
• Reset Outlook folders.
  It might happen that certain Outlook folders are corrupted (for example, they do not have a valid type identifier), which causes the problem with drag & drop. You can use a command-line switch that restores missing folders at the default delivery location and recreates their properties:
  1. Close your Outlook.
  2. Launch the Run command (e.g. by pressing the Windows logo key + R).
  3. Type the following command: Outlook.exe /resetfolders (Fig. 2.), and click OK to execute it. This should repair the default Outlook folders and restore the drag & drop capability.

Remember to type/paste the command precisely, as shown below – the space before the slash (‘/’) is there on purpose.

Fig. 2. A customized startup of Outlook.

“I was working on Outlook and I suddenly realized that every time I select a folder, it is freezing up. First, I thought it is just a random temporary problem, but it kept on happening and every time it was severer than before. Later, my Outlook just restarted, all by itself! What is wrong with my Outlook? Is it some sort of Virus or what?” – Anonymous User

While going through many Outlook related issues over the internet, I came across this one, and it caught my attention. Many users have claimed to experience a situation where they face crashing issues when they select a folder to take any action. There is not a specific reason why this error happens, but it may be a result of several technical or non-technical glitches in Outlook.

Commen Reasons for the Outlook crash

1. Virus Attacks
2. Sudden/Improper Shutdowns
3. Spyware Attacks
4. Corruption of the PST file
5. Corruption in the first message of that particular folder
6. Corruption in the View setting of the folder

How to deal with it?

Although, there is no sure-shot way to tackle this issue until the main reason of the crash is known. But we can apply different methods one by one and check if it solves the issue. Let’s start the journey!

Solution 1- Try Safe Mode

When a problem is unknown, using Safe Mode always works. It is the easiest and fastest way to know what is wrong with your Outlook. To start in safe mode, you need to click on the Start button type “outlook.exe /safe” and press Enter.

After running Outlook in the safe mode, if everything works well, this indicates that there is a corruption in the first message of that folder or in the view of the folder. If it doesn’t work well, then it indicates that there is a corrupt PST which you will need to repair.

Solution 2- Repair the Corrupt Message

When we started the blog, we mentioned that an antivirus scanner may interfere with Outlook. This interference or contradiction between Outlook and the antivirus software you have in your system might be the reason that Outlook is crashing. Why might it be happening? It is because when an antivirus program suspects something unusual going on in your system, it tries to block or stop it from happening. So, it might happen that the antivirus you are using currently is interfering with Outlook and the messages it is receiving which may lead to the crashing of the Outlook. Hence, it is suggested that you should try disabling your antivirus program. Once you disable the antivirus, it is suggested that you not only restart your Outlook, but your system also.

Solution 3- Disable the Antivirus Scanner

We have already discussed that Antivirus scanner may lead to corruption of messages. So, if you don’t want corrupt messages anymore, disable the antivirus.

Solution 4- Reset the Corrupt Folder View

If the above methods did not fix the issue, then the Outlook view itself might be corrupted. One of the hints pointing towards a corrupt view is the crash occurs whenever you try to click or move a particular folder or a set of folders and subfolders.

To fix the corrupt view in Outlook, you will need to reset the current view settings. Make sure you have identified the folder(s) for which view needs to be reset. Click on that folder in Outlook. Next, follow the steps below based on the version of your Outlook application.

• Outlook XP, Outlook 2002 and older versions View > Current View > Customize Current View > Reset Current View
• Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 View > Arrange By > Custom > Reset Current View
• Outlook 2010 to Outlook 2013 View > Reset View
• Outlook 2016 onwards View > Current View > Reset View

The above method works best when one or two folders are corrupt and do not have any subfolders. However, this method becomes tedious for multiple folders and subfolders that require a reset view. In such cases, you can choose to reset all Outlook folders at once by using the command line.

1. Close your Outlook application.
2. Press Win + R key ( or Go to Start > Run)
3. Paste below command in the run dialog box:
4. Press Enter or click OK.

This will reset all the folder views at once.

It is to be noted that the above method will lead to loss of all configured view settings for all the Outlook folders and subfolders.

Solution 5- Repair Corrupt PST file

While running Outlook in Safe Mode if you realized that a corrupt PST is behind all this crash, then fix it as soon as possible. You can either repair a corrupt PST with the help of an inbuilt utility comes with Outlook, known as ‘scanpst.exe’ or with a third-party tool.

To save your precious time and effort, it is always advisable to go for an automated method to do so. One of the best available options for third-party PST repair tool is “Kernel for Outlook PST Repair.”

Kernel for Outlook PST Repair is an advanced Outlook PST repair tool, designed by keeping in mind all the issues related to PSTs. Be it a corrupt, damaged or broken PST, this tool can fix it in a few simple steps. Besides this, it provides a lot more exciting features which make the user experience even better.

MS Outlook can incorporate multiple email accounts from different servers, including web mails and MS Exchange. With Cached Exchange mode, the Exchange mailbox will be accessible in Outlook even when the connection is down. Recently, some of our clients told us that they are facing one issue where Outlook is not updating such mailboxes that are associated with Exchange. Basically, when the user opens Outlook, all the mailbox folders are updated. But some problems can occasionally arise due to several reasons, and here we are going to discuss updating issues with Exchange.

Causes behind the ‘Outlook not updating mailbox folders’ issue

There can be several key factors behind the issue Outlook stops updating the Exchange mailbox folders:

• OST file update is slow due to the large size of the file.
• OST file is corrupt.
• There is an interruption in the synchronization.
• The auto-update feature is disabled by the user.
• Outlook has lost the connection to the Exchange Server.

Solution 1– Try updating folders manually. Sometimes due to poor internet connectivity and other reasons the content and folders in Outlook do not get updated automatically. To update it manually, you need to click on the Send/Receive tab on the top of the Outlook screen and click on the Update folder option given there. The update will happen, if you still can’t see your updated content, then you might have a different issue, move to the next step.

Solution 2– Try working on Offline and then on Online mode by switching between them. For this, click on the Send/Receive tab on the top of the Outlook screen as earlier and click on the Work Offline button. Close Outlook and open it again, and now click on the Send/Receive button again and de-select the Work Offline mode by clicking on it.

Solution 3– To deal with the problem, you can start with clearing the Offline items from Outlook. As you know that you can use Outlook offline anytime with the help of the cached data it has stored. This cached data not only helps you operate Outlook on offline mode, but also improves the performance. The problem arises when the offline items do not match with the online items, due to any sort of connectivity issues. So, the best option you are left with is to clear the offline items so that this issue could be resolved. Follow below-mentioned steps to do so:

• Start with a right click on the folder and select Properties from the menu.
• In the general tab click on the Clear Offline Items and all your Offline items will be removed.
• Now on the top of the Outlook screen click on the Send/Receive tab and click on the Update folder.

Note: This will surely solve your problem. But, this solution will remove your files locally, click on the Synchronization tab and there you will see the details about the offline and server folders. There you will see that offline items are zero, but Server still contains items. After performing this, open Outlook again so that Outlook can download all items from Exchange again.

• First close Outlook and open Control Panel by clicking on the Start button.
• Click on the Mail in Control Panel.
• Select Data Files from the Mail setup dialogue box. This is where all the data files used by Outlook are listed; they are listed with their respective locations.
• Now select your OST and click on the Settings tab.
• Now, in the Advanced tab click on the Outlook Data File Settings.
• Click on the Compact Now in the Outlook Data Files Settings dialogue box and click on Ok.
• Wait until the process takes place, and once it is done you will notice that the size of your OST has decreased.

Solution 4– Try using Scanost.exe for the cause. If you are using Outlook XP, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007 then you can use this OST integrity check tool to repair an OST. It is an inbuilt utility of MS Outlook, and you can find it at:

Now, you know where to find this utility in which version of Outlook, but before you run it, it is advisable to close all the running instances of Outlook.

Solution 5– As we have already discussed that due to the cached data, the offline and online data may mismatch, so to overcome with this issue it is advisable that you disable this option from the settings as below:

• In Outlook, click on the File tab.
• In the info section click on the Account Settings and from the drop-down click on the Account Settings.
• Now, in the E-mail tab click on the Exchange account.
• Select Change from the options mentioned above.
• Now in the Microsoft Exchange server section clear the Cached Exchange Mode box.
• Now close everything and open Outlook Again.

By performing these methods, you can solve the update issue. As you can see that how important OST is when it comes to this issue, so if none of these methods work, then you can try to repair OST with Kernel for OST recovery tool , which is an outstanding solution to every problem related with your OST.

Conclusion

When the manual solutions provided above do not work, you can move ahead and try a professional solution – the Kernel OST Recovery tool. The tool will be checking the OST files for corruption and recover the entire items, including the deleted ones.

Related Topic

• Unable to Access OST in MS Outlook 2016
• Salvage data of your Inaccessible OST by Converting it to PST
• The File “username.ost is in use and cannot be accessed” Fixed
• How to Migrate data from Outlook OST to MBOX?

Comments & Reviews

This issue has plagued me for over a year. I tried #2 and it worked immediately. Thank you so much for the fix!

Solution 3 did it for me, thanks!!

Very insightful and useful piece of guideline. Thank you.

Last update: May 2020
Applicable to: Outlook 365, 2019, 2016, 2013; Windows and macOS

Here’s a question we got from a reader about her Microsoft Outlook client not showing new incoming emails automatically:

Unlike my when using my Google Mail account, it looks that my Microsoft Outlook 365 folders are not automatically updated with incoming email messages. It seems to me that any new email items are updated probably once in 15-20 minutes. I know that i can update Outlook by hitting F9 or use the Send/Receive All command. My question to you is how can i possibly set Outlook to automatically update its Inbox folder more often, if possible as often as Gmail does. If that’s not possible, can you explain how often mail check happens and how to refresh Outlook so that new inbox emails are shown as fast as possible?

If you ever used Microsoft Office Outlook as your PC e-mail client, you might have noticed some delay in your inbox refresh rate. Typically, it takes your incoming mail a bit more time to arrive when compared to web email services such as Yahoo Mail, GMail and Outlook.com. Those typically auto update your inbox folder entries whenever new email hits your mailbox.

In today’s tutorial, i will show you how to make your Outlook inbox update automatically in shorter intervals so that the latest incoming messages are shown once they hit your server.

Outlook inbox auto-update on Windows

• Open Outlook, and hit the Send/Receive button.
• Click on Send/Receive Groups drop down box and Select Define Send/Receive Groups.

• Under All Accounts, Click on Schedule an Automatic Send/Receive every.
• Change the Minutes value from 30to a smaller number. Note that setting this value to less than 5 min might lead to duplicated entries in your inbox.

• After changing Close the Dialog box.
• Now your Outlook inbox will automatically refresh every 10 minutes.

Increasing the refresh rate of all your Inboxes

• In the Send/Receive Groups dialog (steps to open it explained beforehand), go to “Setting for group All Accounts“
• And then set the Schedule an automatic.. value to the required refresh rate. Again – beware the fact that too frequent updates could lead to duplicated Outlook email entries; which are generally time consuming to fix.

Auto-updating the Outlook calendar

To ensure your Outlook calendar is always up to date, proceed as following:

• In the Send/Receive Groups dialog, hit the Edit button.
• Then in the left hand side, ensure that your email account is marked.
• Then under Folder Options ensure that your Calendar folder is marked.
• Hit Apply.

Auto-update you Outlook global address / contact lists

• Same as in the section above, just ensure that the Contacts folder is marked for auto sync.

Note: You can always trigger an update of your email folder by hitting F9.

Refresh email on Mac

If you are using Outlook on macOS to read your Gmail, Hotmail or Exchange email, you can shorten your Outlook folders synchronization interval, so that auto update processes will be enabled and launched more often.

Kindly proceed as following:

1. Open Outlook for MAC
2. In the left bar, you’ll note your GMail, Hotmail / Outlook.com or Exchange Account.
3. Make a right click and select Account Settings.

1. The Accounts dialog will appear, at the bottom right of the screen hit the Advanced button.
2. Open the Server tab and set your sync interval accordingly as shown below – Note that for IMAP accounts (GMail and Outlook.com) the minimum value is 2 minutes.

Note: for slower connections like cellular hot spots, you might want to consider to check the Download message headers only box.

1. Hit OK.
2. Close the Accounts dialog.
3. You are all set 🙂

Manually update Outlook web app

A couple of readers asked whether there is a possibility to trigger an auto update of the Outlook.com web client inbox. I personally don’t think that’s needed as Outlook.com emails are updated automatically, in the same fashion that Gmail or other web clients are.

As with any web app, you can hit F5 to refresh your browser and update your unread email list.

The above is applicable also for Outlook OWA users, whom connect to their companies Exchange server via their web browser..

Additional Reader questions

Refresh Outlook manually

Couple of readers asked how to manually trigger an update of their mailboxes.

On Windows :

Update all Outlook folders:

This procedure will trigger a Send/Receive action on all Online and offline accounts (could be exchange, Hotmail/Outlook.com, Yahoo, GMail) that are setup in your Outlook.

Side Note: that you might as well define specific Accounts/Folders group and trigger an update on those specifically. For example – refresh only your private GMail account and not work Exchange during weekends.

1. Open the Send/Receive tab.
2. Hit the Send/Receive All folders button (or simply hit F9).

Update a specific folder:

1. Open the Send/Receive tab.
2. Hit the Update Folder button.

On macOS :

Refresh your entire mailbox:

• Enter the Home tab.
• Hit the Send & Receive button.

Update specific folder:

• Open the Organize tab.
• Hit the Sync Folder button.

Use VBA to refresh your mailbox

The method SyncObjects can be used in order to sync one or more Send/Receive groups for a specific user. In case you are interested in building a macro to automate your auto syncs, feel free to ping me via the contact page.

1 thought on “How to refresh my Outlook inbox mail when it is not automatically updating?”

None of this applies to the “new” Outlook which is included in Office 365. And, there is no way to “toggle back” to the “old” Outlook interface, per the 365 help files.

Besides the default Contacts folder, Outlook allows the creation of multiple contacts folders. If you have a lot of connections in Outlook, it’s a good idea to sort them properly by creating multiple contacts folders and enable them in your address book.

This makes a lot of sense if you want to separate your workgroup or business contacts from personal contacts like friends or family members. Another idea is to create a separate folder for contacts that you don’t reach that often and leave the people that you converse with frequently in the main Contacts folder.

In Outlook, the Address book will include the main Contacts folder and any other folders you might add. The contacts from it are being automatically fetched when you click the To box and start typing a button.

In normal conditions, when you create a new contacts folder inside the Contacts Pane, the new folder will automatically be added to the address book. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you’ll see that some contact folders displayed in the Navigation Pane will not show inside the Address book. To help you resolve this issue, we have created a guide on enabling a contact folder as an address book.

If you’re looking for a way to make some order in your contact lists, keep reading below. You’ll find detailed guides on creating a new contact folder in Outlook and enabling it as an Address Book. Let’s begin.

Note: The steps below are compatible with every Outlook version from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2016.

How to create a new Contacts folder in Outlook

1. In the left-hand side of Outlook, click on the Contacts icon to bring forward the Contacts Pane.
2. Right-click on Contacts and select New Folder.
   
3. Insert the name of your contact folder under the Name field, then tap the drop-down menu under Folder contains and select Contacts items.
   
4. Now, click on Contacts to specify where you want the folder placed and click OK.
   Note: Keep in mind that you could have placed the folder in any other parent folder, not just Contacts. If you want to place the folder in the root path, select your email address at the top of the list.
   

That’s it. Your contact folder is now created.

How to Enable a folder as an Address Book in Outlook

Now that you created the new contact folder, it should automatically get recognized as an Address book if you click the TO button when you’re typing a new message. But if it doesn’t, you’ll need to take some extra steps. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click the Contacts icon in the bottom-left corner of Outlook.
2. Right-click on the folder that isn’t getting recognized as an address book and select Properties.
   
3. Once you’re inside New Contacts Properties, click the Outlook Address Book tab and make sure that the box next to Show this folder as an email Address Book is enabled.
   
4. Insert a name for your Address book and hit Apply to enable this folder as an Outlook Address Book.

Looking for an answer to the question: What does clean up conversation do in outlook? On this page, we have gathered for you the most accurate and comprehensive information that will fully answer the question: What does clean up conversation do in outlook?

To arrange messages by conversation, click the View tab and check the show As Conversation option in the Conversations group. Then, choose All Folders or This Folder. The differences are subtle, but Outlook identifies conversations with a small triangle to the left.

In addition to Clean Up Folder, Outlook can also Clean Up Conversations, removing older messages in a thread that are quoted in newer messages. Right click on any thread and choose Clean Up Conversation in the context menu or look for it on the Clean Up button in the Delete Group on the Home tab.

If you are using Outlook.com, just follow the steps below on how to stop conversation threading on your emails. Login to your account. Click on the gear icon located at the upper right part of the inbox page. Choose More mail settings. Under Reading email, click on Group by conversation and pre-load messages.

What do the symbols next to emails in Outlook mean?

An arrow pointing left means the message has been read and replied to. An arrow pointing right means the message has been read and forwarded. A paperclip means the message has an attachment. A flag indicates you have flagged the message for follow up.

How do I delete conversation history in Outlook?

In Outlook 2016, go to the Conversation History folder, select the conversation(s) you would like to delete and choose Delete from the menu. To permanently delete a conversation, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on it and choose Delete from the menu, then click Yes to confirm.

What does the orange dot on outlook mean?

The colored dot next to people indicates their Stage. Red = Lead. Orange = Potential. Green = Active. Blue = Inactive.

How do I clean up Outlook Inbox quickly?

In Outlook, choose File> Cleanup Tools > Mailbox Cleanup. Here are some ways to keep your mailbox size under control:Archive older items – Move old items you want to keep to an archive. . Empty the Deleted Items folder – Empty the Deleted Items folder frequently to make sure you aren’t keeping messages you don’t need.

How do you delete conversation history in Outlook?

In Outlook 2016, go to the Conversation History folder, select the conversation(s) you would like to delete and choose Delete from the menu. To permanently delete a conversation, hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on it and choose Delete from the menu, then click Yes to confirm.

Do sent items take up space in Outlook?

By default, Outlook creates a copy of every email you send, including any attachments, and stores it in the Sent Items folder. These emails and any attachments are taking up your mailbox space.

What does the cleanup button do?

Clean Up Conversation The current Conversation is reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted. Clean Up Folder All Conversations in the selected folder are reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted.

What does the clean up folder option do?

Clean Up Folder: All Conversations in the selected folder are reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted. Clean Up Folder & Subfolders: All Conversations in the selected folder and any folder that it contains are reviewed, and redundant messages are deleted.

How do I clean up thousands of emails?

Here’s how you can delete thousands of clutter emails in bulk and free up space. Here’s how to do it:Step 1: Identify email you can delete. . Step 2: Seek. . Step 3: Seek older emails. . Step 4: Destroy. . Step 5: Unsubscribe. . Step 6: Set up filters.Dec 18, 2018

What does show as conversations do in Outlook?

The Show as Conversations function can group emails by thread across one or multiple mail folders in Outlook. All emails with the same subject line will be grouped into the same conversation automatically.

What is conversation history?

In the Conversation History, text conversations are organized by contact name and then by date. All conversations that you save with a contact on a particular date are saved in a single log. When you save a conversation in Conversation History, only the text portion is saved. Audio and video aren’t saved.

How do I stop Outlook from grouping conversations?

Click Mail in the navigation pane. Click Arrange by: Conversations. Click Conversations in the drop down menu. This will uncheck the box next to conversation and remove the conversation view groupings from your inbox.

What does a blue down arrow in Outlook mean?

message of low importance Blue down arrow indicates message of low importance.

How do I free up space in Outlook without deleting emails?

Some ways you can prevent your mailbox from being cluttered include:Archive older items. Put any items you want to keep in an archive to free up space. . Empty the “Deleted Items” folder. . Empty the “Junk Email” folder. . Store attachments outside your mailbox.Jun 11, 2019

Does deleting sent emails free up space in Outlook?

Just like with emptying the “Deleted Items” folder, this will free up space in your Outlook mailbox for the messages you actually want.

What does red circle with white line mean in Outlook?

If you want to keep messages from being edited, forwarded, and/or printed, use the Permissions button on the toolbar when crafting a message. (This button looks like a Do Not Enter sign: a red circle with a white horizontal line through it.)

How do I delete conversation history folder in Outlook?

The Conversation History folder is created as default in Outlook. This means that deleting this folder isn’t available. With regard to your concern, we recommend submitting a feedback in Outlook UserVoice. This is a great way to provide a feedback about what you like or dislike about the product.

Why is my conversation history not saving in Outlook?

Under Personal Information Manager, make sure that Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook is selected. Make sure that the Save IM conversations in my email Conversation History folder check box is selected.

Does conversation clean up delete attachments?

This new feature deletes older messages from a conversation while preserving the newest instance in the thread. Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about lost details because Outlook looks at the content of emails and deletes earlier messages that have duplicate content but will not delete messages with attachments.

Outlook has a couple of tools to help you manage all messages (sent and received) in a conversation together. Conversation View allows you to view and take action on all emails in a string at once, while Conversation Cleanup helps you save space in your inbox by removing emails with identical text included in replies. Here’s how:

Set your emails to Conversation View

Open Outlook. In the View tab at the top of the screen, check the Show as Conversations box. This will group together emails by conversation. You can play around with the Conversation Settings to see what works best for you. We suggest selecting Show Messages from Other Folders to include your sent mail as well.

Messages in a conversation will now appear as a single item in your inbox viewing pane. To see all the messages in a thread click the arrow to the left. If you did not select Always Expand Conversations in Conversation Settings you will need to click this arrow twice to see the full thread, including your sent items.

Emails in a conversation thread which have attachments may be included in the cleanup batch. As a result, before running Clean Up Conversation, you will need to download and manage attachments outside of Outlook for the legal retention period. Here are instructions on how to download and save attachments from Outlook.

Run Conversation Cleanup

On the Home tab, select Clean Up. You can choose to clean up a single conversation, the current folder, or the current folder and any subfolders.

If you want to change cleanup settings, click Settings when the dialog box appears.

Scroll down to the Conversation Clean Up settings and select options you would like. We suggest selecting the last option, “When a reply modified a message, don’t move the original” to ensure that if someone modifies the sent text in a reply the original version is not lost.

Note that Conversation Cleanup does not run automatically, so you will have to remember to do so periodically. One idea to help you remember is to set a recurring appointment in Outlook.

Sometimes when working with Outlook, there is the need to create a new (empty) Outlook PST Data file but to keep the current Outlook folder structure from the old Outlook PST data file. This is useful especially if the current Outlook file is too big in size and you face problems when working or managing it and you want to create a new PST file with the existing (current) folder structure.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to copy the Outlook folder structure only (without the emails) to a new -empty- Outlook PST data file. At the end of the process, you will be able to use the new Outlook data file, as the default store location, for your emails, calendar and contacts.

How to Transfer the Outlook Folder Structure to a new Outlook Data File.

Step 1. Create the New Outlook PST file by using the Archive command.

To copy the existing folder structure from the current Outlook PST file to a new (empty) Outlook data file, you have to create the new Outlook PST file using the “Archive” feature in Outlook. To do that:

1. Open Outlook and go to:

• Outlook 2007: File ->Archive
• Outlook 2010 & Outlook 2013: File ->Info –>Cleanup Tools ->Archive…
• Outlook 2016: File->Info ->Tools ->Clean Up Old Items

2. At Archive options, apply the following settings:

1. Choose to Archive this folder and all subfolders.
2. Select the Personal folders.
3. Specify a date far back to the past to make sure that no mails are moved to the new PST file. (e.g. 1/1/1950)
4. Then click the Browse button.

5. Type a recognizable name for the new Outlook data file (e.g. “OutlookNew.pst) and click OK.*

* Note: At the end of the process, this file will be the default store location for Outlook.

6. Click OK again to start the archive process.

7. When the archive process is completed you should see under the “Archive Folders” group, the same list of the folders that you already have under the “Personal Folders” group. *

* The “Archive Folders” is the newly created PST file (e.g. “OutlookNew.pst in this example) and the “Personal Folders” is the old (existing) PST file (e.g. “Outlook.pst” in this example)

8. Close Outlook and proceed to the next step.

Step 2. Set the NEW PST file as the Default Store Location for Outlook.

1. Navigate to Windows Control Panel and set the View By: to Small icons.

2. Open Mail (32-bit).

3. Click Data Files…

4. Double click at Personal Folders.

5. Rename “Personal Folders” to “Personal Folders OLD” and click OK.

6. Now double click at “Archive Folders”.
7. Rename “Archive Folders” to “Personal Folders” and click OK.
8. Highlight the “Personal Folders” and click Set as Default.

9. Click OK at the “Message Delivery Location” information message.

9. Click Close twice to close all windows.

10. Launch Outlook.
11. You ‘re done! From now on, all your new mails, contacts, calendar, and tasks will be stored under the “Personal Folders” group, which is the new empty PST file (e.g. “OutlookNew.pst”) and your existing information in Outlook (mails, contacts, calendar, tasks) can be found under the “Personal Folders OLD” group which is the old PST file (e.g. “Outlook.pst”).

That’s it! Let me know if this guide has helped you by leaving your comment about your experience. Please like and share this guide to help others.

Here you will find out:

• about the “Outlook folders missing” issue

• methods, how to fix it

• how DiskInternals can help you

Are you ready? Let’s read!

About the “Outlook folders missing” issue

Certainly, Microsoft Outlook is a leader in the sector of corporate email clients on desktop PCs.

User data is stored in OST and PST files. A fairly large number of Outlook users have, to one degree or another, encountered problems opening PST files due to their damage. The appearance of the error “Outlook folders missing” and the inability to open email archives results in headaches for users, administrators, and technical support services.

This article will talk about simple and complex methods for fixing the Outlook folder disappeared error and recovering Outlook data.

Method 1. Turn on All View for your folders

This can help get rid of the Outlook folders missing problem.

First, open the application. Then access the problematic folder. On the taskbar, click “View”, then select “Change View”. In the new window, select the “Reset View” button and then click OK.

Go back to the “View” dialog box, then select “Change View”. Click on “Apply current view to other mail folders”. Next, activate the option “for mailboxes and their subfolders.” Finally, click OK.

After that, restart the application and try to open a previously non-opening folder. Everything should work out!

Method 2. If the Folder pane is invisible

The pane on the left contains folder shortcuts through which the user can navigate from one folder to another. By default, it contains three groups of shortcuts: Outlook Shortcuts, My Shortcuts, and Other Shortcuts. Sometimes, this pane is hidden and you are not able to view all available folders. In this case, it needs to be fixed. You can display the panel using the Toolbar item on the View menu. From the list, select Normal and the folder panel will be displayed on the left-hand side of the screen.

There is an even simpler option: At the top in the folder panel area, there is an arrow; click on it with the mouse and the panel will immediately appear.

If everything is in order with this panel, proceed to the next rescue method for dealing with the Outlook folders missing issue.

Method 3. Try SCANPST.exe to solve the error

A damaged or non-existent SCANPST.EXE file can affect the unsuccessful execution of the running process; that is, searching for and opening the necessary Outlook file. This can be fixed using the special application that will be discussed now.

On drive C, find the location of the SCANPST.exe file. Next, launch the Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool (it can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website). Now, in the new window that pops up, enter the path (location) of the SCANPST.exe folder and click the Start button. This application, after scanning, will fix all the problems.

If still, your Outlook folders have not reappeared, the last method will be your salvation.

Method 4. If you need your files right now

DiskInternals Outlook Recovery will come to your aid.

This tool is ahead of similar competitors and leads in successfully restoring files (up to 99%), the number of available formats and the general level of performance compared to similar products. The program will handle any problem that may have caused data loss. You can recover incoming and outgoing email messages, calendars, events, attachments, address books, tasks, etc., from whole PST files and from individual fragments of large PST files.

The program restores Outlook data files for all versions of Outlook up to and including version 201. It is also possible to recover OST files.

Export of Microsoft Outlook data is possible in the form of EML, VCF, TXT or other file formats. This function is available only in the licensed version, but you can view files before purchasing them for free.

As soon as you install and open DiskInternals Outlook Recovery, the Recovery Wizard will ask you to choose a specific recovery method:

• database

• email

• address book

Next, you need to start the scan and wait for the result.

As soon as you see the data, you can start viewing it for free.

After that, buy a license and start exporting the recovered data.

• By Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson
• Published 2 years ago

Microsoft’s track record with updates for Windows has been a little wobbly of late, with many updates introducing problems, or creating more issues than they fix. But it seems that it is not just the famous operating system that is jinxed — Outlook is too.

Following reports from users that the Outlook desktop app was crashing with a 0xc0000005 error, Microsoft launched an investigation. While the company is now in the processing of pushing out a fix, a workaround has been shared online for those affected.

See also:

While Microsoft has not indicated which update it believes may have been to blame, the crashing issues only started on 15 July. The company does say, however, that none of the update release on this particular date are to blame.

On Twitter, Microsoft used its Microsoft 365 Status account to keep users updated:

We’re investigating whether a recently deployed update could be the source of this issue. As a workaround, users can utilize Outlook on the web or their mobile clients. Additional details can be found in the admin center under EX218604 and OL218603.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 15, 2020

We’ve completed the fix rollout and confirmed via internal monitoring the service has recovered. Please note, users may need to restart the Outlook client to enable the fix. Additional details can be found under EX218604 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 15, 2020

Now on the Office support site, Microsoft says:

There is a new symptom of Outlook crashing on launch starting on 7/15/2020. A fix has been published but will take time to propagate to worldwide availability. Outlook will automatically look for the fix on launch, so if this issue persists through multiple launches please use Outlook Web Access (or your providers webmail interface) for an hour then try again.

This problem is not associated with any of the 7/15/2020 security patches so there is no need to uninstall them if Outlook will not launch. If this issue persists beyond four hours please contact Microsoft Support by whichever means works best for you.

Additional details can be found in the admin center under EX218604 and OL218603.

As Microsoft explains, the fix may not be available to everyone immediately, so you can use the mobile or web-based versions of Outlook in the meantime. There is also a workaround that has been shared by Appuals.com:

1. Click Start and Type CMD
2. Right Click CMD and choose “Run As Administrator“
3. Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun
4. Type, exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12827.20470
5. In case you get the “Something went wrong” error message use this command instead of the one on step-4 exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.12527.20880
6. An “Updating Microsoft Office” prompt will now open up and the last stable version will be installed.
7. If the above doesn’t work you can also try starting Outlook in offline or safe mode.

The number of unread emails displayed in round brackets:

To choose which number you want to be displayed, do the following:

1. Right-click the folder and select Properties. in the popup menu:

2. From the folder’s Properties dialog box, you can choose one of the following options:

• Show number of unread items
• Show total number of items

3. Click OK.

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Rule to display mail from somebody

How to set Outlook to download only E-mail headers

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