Several users noticed the Delete button was missing when a message was selected in the Inbox:
I recently switched email accounts and the Delete button is disabled and some of my messages are missing. The Delete key on the keyboard will delete messages, only the Delete button in the Home ribbon and the right-click menu for selected e-mail(s) is disabled.
This is the result of exporting an IMAP data file to a pst file or opening IMAP pst files in Outlook. The folders retain certain IMAP features, one of which is the Delete button doesn't work as expected. (In IMAP, it purges.) To fix it, you need to edit the Inbox folder using MFCMAPI and change the PR_CONTAINER_CLASS to IPF.Note.
- Get MFCMAPI . If you have 64 bit office, you need 64 bit MFCMAPI.
- Open MFCMAPI, go to Session, Logon
- Select your profile
- Double-click on the affected data store.
- Expand Root - Mailbox
- Expand Top of Information Store or IPM_Subtree
- Select Inbox
- Look for PR_CONTAINER_CLASS in the right pane, double-click on it.
- Change IPF.IMAP to IPF.Note then click OK to close the dialog.
- Repeat for each folder that was exported from an IMAP data file.
- When you are finished, close the MFCMAPI window, click Session, Logoff on the last MFCMAPI window.
Video Tutorial
Thank You so Much!
This is absolutely amazing. I spent a few evening looking for it. Great. Thank You. God Bless You
This was amazing. Worked like a charm. Your instructions were PERFECT. I spent hours searching for a cure to this issue and it only took me 30 minutes to fix. AMAZING. I cannot thank you enough.
These instructions worked perfectly! Thank you.
Thanks for posting this. My Delete button was grayed out. It wasn't always like that, but after following your instruction my delete button works again!
Many thanks for the very helpful article; I successfully restore the delete button to use. Tim
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! After moving/combining thousands of emails from Gmail IMAP to POP3, I started moving emails from the POP3 inbox to folders marked as IMAP and they were 'disappearing'. I thought they were lost forever. I changed the view and it worked, but this permanently and properly fixed all of those subfolders, so that I can use any view I want.
That was a legend fix - thank you!