Volume 28 Issue 17

Issue Date: August 3, 2023 « Previous Issue | Next Issue »

The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on August 3, 2023.

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Today's Highlights »

Mail disappears after a couple of seconds
Open Outlook Folders using PowerShell or VBScript
Print a contact list
Resend Messages in New Outlook?

Mail disappears after a couple of seconds

Several users recently complained that Outlook was deleting mail seconds after it landed in their inbox. They had no rules, the messages weren't in Junk Email or Deleted Items folders. They could not find the messages using search. They were not using Samsung phones or did not have email filtering enabled on the phone.

I finally had a chance to look at an affected user's computer today. After running the cleanrules switch in case there were rogue rules hiding, I open Junk Email Options to look at the blocked list and instantly saw the problem.

The user had Outlook filter set to "High: Most junk email is caught, but some regular mail may be caught as well. Check your Junk Email folder often." In addition, she had "Permanently delete suspected junk email instead of moving it to the Junk Email folder" enabled.

Problem solved.

While using the high junk mail setting isn’t a big problem, Microsoft hasn’t updated the junk mail filters in quite a few years, so they are not accurate and can lead to a high number of false positives. The bigger problem was that she was deleting suspected junk email. You should not delete suspected junk email when you turn on automatic filtering.

Microsoft recommends using No automatic filtering. This will filter based on the block list only. As long as you don't put good addresses on the blocked list, you could delete junk mail. I prefer moving it to the Junk email folder instead.

Open Outlook Folders using PowerShell or VBScript

An Outlook user wanted to create shortcuts on his desktop to his most used folders.

Older versions supported created links to folders on the Windows desktop, however, Microsoft removed this option about 20 years ago.

Honestly, it's really not necessary as you can add your most used folders to the Mail Favorites in Outlook. If you aren't showing the Favorites list, enable it from the View tab > Folder Pane button. Then right-click on a folder and choose Add to Favorites to add it. To remove a folder from Favorites, right-click the folder and choose Remove from Favorites. (You can drag and drop too.)

If you don't like the Favorites panel, you could use VBA to open specific folders and add buttons to the ribbon to run the macro. This works good if you only have a few folders you want to open quickly.

If you really want desktop shortcuts, you can use PowerShell or VBScript to open the folder. You'll save the script to a folder and add a shortcut to the desktop to run it. If you are big on using desktop shortcuts or don't keep Outlook open, opening Outlook from a shortcut might save time. It's not a time-saver if you are working in Outlook and need to go find the shortcut on your desktop.

And yes, I have both PowerShell and VBScript (along with instructions) to open a folder using a script.
Open Outlook Folders using PowerShell or VBScript

Print a contact list

A user asked "I would like to print out contact lists and include the job title and phone numbers, not just the contacts name and email address. How can I do this?"

While you can print a list of contact list members from the contact group, it will only have the contact's name and email address. To get other data from the contact, you will need to use a macro to look up the contact of each member and get the additional data.

I have a macro here: Create a list of Contact Group members and their phone numbers

Resend Messages in New Outlook?

A user wanted to know how to resend messages in New Outlook for Windows.

The New Outlook (Outlook Pre) does not have a resend sent message option. If you need to resend a message (in any client that does not have a Resend message option), click the Forward button and remove FW from the subject and message header from the body. Address the message then click Send.

In Outlook for Windows, to resend a message, open it and click File > Recall or Resend > Resend the Message or on the Home ribbon, click Actions button then Resend this message.