I'm trying to empty my Deleted Items folder but I receive a message telling me I need to wait for the sync to finish. It's been over a week, how long does it take to sync these changes?
When you delete a lot of folders from a mailbox, it's not all that uncommon to receive an error message when you try to empty the Deleted Items folder:
Outlook is synchronizing local changes made to items in this folder. You cannot remove this folder until the synchronization with the server is complete.
Would you believe me if I said it sometimes takes between forever and never? When Outlook seems to get hung on syncing the changes, log into OWA and empty the Deleted Items folder there. If you have a large number of folders in the Deleted Items folder or you didn't allow Outlook a reasonable amount of time to sync changes, you many need to empty the Deleted items from OWA two or three times.
Phil says
Hi Diane, not sure if this is the correct place to ask but I am using Outlook 365 and it will not let me delete unneeded folders. Gives me the error message: Cant delete the folder. Right click the folder, then click permissions...........
It is driving me crazy.
I logged in online and when I delete the folder it disappears and then reappears!!!
Going insane over here
Phil
Diane Poremsky says
Are they default folders? Those can't be deleted, only hidden. Se https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/delete-outlooks-default-folders/ for instructions.
scott feld says
Thanks. I don't want to count the hours I have wasted over the last few months trying to figure this out.
DWade says
Thank you! You are awesome ... as usual!!
Craig Katz says
Thanks for the help! No thanks to Outlook for the useless error message..
Andrew says
After the fact I noticed my problematic folders had rules attached to them. I wonder if that might have been the underlying cause.
Diane Poremsky says
I don't think so, I think it's just Outlook being... Outlook. I've had it come up in folders in test mailboxes that had no rules.
Jon says
You are the best. Thank you so much for this tip!
Michael says
brilliant! - just log into OWA - excellent
eric says
What is OWA? and how do you log on?
Diane Poremsky says
OWA is web-based email, specifically Exchange server's "Outlook Web Access", or as it's now know "Outlook on the web". With the outlook.com move to Office 365 Exchange backend, it also applies to it. Go to outlook.com in your web browser... enter your Hotmail email address and password if asked.
Traci says
This helped me as well. Tried for weeks to fix. Thank you!!!
howard spiegel says
Wow, thank you so, so very much. Fixed me right up . wished i'd found you hours ago. thanks again