Users are reporting duplicate copies of messages in their sent folder:
Our accounts consistently get double messages in the sent folder. The recipient only receives one copy, but there are always two in the sent message folder.
The cause of this phenomenon depends on the type of email account involved.
In the case of IMAP accounts, Outlook saves a sent message in the IMAP account's Sent message folder and your IMAP mail provider may also save a copy. The result is two messages in the Sent Items folder every time you send a message. This seems to be most common with Gmail and Yahoo-hosted accounts but other IMAP accounts may be affected as well.
Change the IMAP Account's Sent Options
If you are using Outlook 2016/2019 and have the Simplified account setup dialogs, you'll need to check the Advanced settings from Manage Profiles. This is the control Panel > Mail dialog, but you can open it right from Outlook: Go to File > Account Settings > Manage Profiles. Click the Email accounts button, double click on your account then click More settings.
In Outlook 2013, to check your settings for saving Sent items, open File, Account Settings. Double click on your IMAP account then click More Settings. In Outlook 2013 and 2016, look on the Advanced tab.
In Outlook 2010, check the options on the Sent Items tab.
Choose the option for Do not save copies of sent items and send a test message to see if the problem persists.
Note: this setting will not remove existing duplicated sent messages. It will prevent duplicates from being created going forward.
Change Outlook's Global Options
If you have only one email account in your profile, you could use the option to not save sent messages. This is in File, Options, Mail, in the "Save messages" section, uncheck the option to Save copies of messages in the Sent folder.
Note that this setting will apply to all accounts - if you have more than one email account configured, you will not save sent items for any account.
For this reason, you need to be careful using the global setting in File, Options as not all mail servers will save a sent item for you when sending. It's better to disable the option to save sent items on the More Settings, Sent folder tab.
Scanning outgoing mail with an antivirus scanner may result in duplicates.
Brilliant. Thanks again Diane for some very helpful information.
I have my gmail linked to my Outlook account, and the above doesn't work for me; mail won't send when I choose 'don't save copies in sent file.'
it's set up as a connected account in Outlook.com? The information on this page applies when its added to outlook desktop as an account.
As already said by David!
Thank you! My Outlook 365 (subscription) had been doing this for a long time and I finally decided to conduct some research on it. This article was the first in the Google search results and it worked perfectly!
thanks again for a solution
Hi, I’m very curious about my email settings. I knew I was not receiving them correctly because my law school administrations emails were showing up randomly in spam. I had been receiving these emails correctly for months. If all my email accounts were added to an imap server, how would this occur?
If they are landing in the spam folder, either the server or outlook is identifying the messages as spam.
I was able to get rid of duplicates in the Sent Items folder by following your guidance, but the single copies of sent items show up as unread. How can I fix that problem?
Who is your email hosted with? We see unread sent items when using rules to move sent mail but it shouldn't happen if the server is saving the sent items,
ATT/Yahoo. It's an sbcglobal.net account.
Without changing settings and seemingly irrespective of whether I send a message from Outlook 365 on my Microsoft Surface Pro or the native email app on my Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphone, sometimes I still get duplicates in my Sent folder - one of which is read and the other unread. If there is only one message, it is marked as unread. I can't figure out where the issues originate.
Please advise. Thanks,
so it happens when you send from either device? I'll see if i can repro it with my yahoo account.
I was told by a friend today that he has been receiving duplicates of all messages I send, so I tested things out by sending one email to myself from my sbcglobal email from each of my devices (Samsung smartphone native email app and Outlook 365 on laptop).
On both devices, I received only one copy of each message in my inbox, but in my Sent folder there are two copies of the message I sent from my phone (one read and one unread) and only one copy of the message sent from my laptop, which is marked as unread.
Seems like there's an issue with the email settings on my phone, right?
Continuation...I downloaded the Outlook app onto my phone and sent an email to myself from my sbcglobal email. That resulted in only a single copy of the message in my Sent folder, a single copy in my inbox on Outlook on my laptop and in the native email app on my phone, but two copies in my Outlook inbox on my phone.
I'm sorry for all the messages. After a delay, I now have two copies of the email message sent to myself from Outlook in the Sent folder in the native email app on my phone and on Outlook 365 on my laptop, one read and one unread. However, in Outlook on my phone, there is only one copy of the message in the Sent folder. I can't make sense of this.
To summarize, there are two main issues:
1. When I send myself sbcglobal email from any app on my Samsung phone (native or Outlook), I get duplicates in my Sent folder, one read and one unread, and although I only receive one copy in my inbox, others receive duplicates of messages I send.
2. There appears to be no issue with duplicates of items sent from Outlook on my laptop; however, the single copy of the message in my Sent folder is marked as unread.
Thanks in advance for your help.
I did some investigation, and here's the situation:
When I send email from my sbcglobal email account from any email app (including Outlook) on my phone, duplicates are sent out and two copies show up in my Sent folder, one read, and one unread. The issue does not happen when I use my gmail account to send email.
When I send from the sbcglobal account from Outlook on my laptop, only one copy is sent, and only one copy shows up in the Sent folder, but it is marked as unread.
Any idea what's going on?
Sorry I missed this earlier. sbcglobal is hosted by yahoo, correct? They are now doing what google does - saves a copy of sent messages, so disabling the option on the account settings in Outlook will solve the problem on the outlook side. I'm not sure if there is an option for the phone, but will check.
There are a number of online discussions in various forums with this same problem, and seemingly no solution. All deal with att yahoo e-mail. In my case, outlook on my pc seems to be the only place they're duplicated and one is marked unread. I've used the steps above just now and seem to have the duplication issue fixed (on initial, early review), but the "unread item in the sent folder" is still an issue.
Yahoo recently started saving a copy of the sent item when the mail is sent, just like gmail does.
I'll see if i can repro the unread message.
I have my Outlook 2013 configured for IMAP and my ISP's e-mail is hosted by Yahoo. I get a duplicate in my Sent Items, but ONLY for ONE particular recipient whose e-mail account is also with my ISP. I don't know if anyone else has the same particular hiccup. My Outlook did not have the "do not save copies of sent items" checked, and after putting in a checkmark there, the problem seems to have been resolved. Thanks!
Sorry to keep posting here, but now I noticed that when I sent an email with attachments, all of the attachments were also sent twice.
If the message was sent twice, i would expect the attachments ot go twice too - but not doubled attachments on one message.
Actually, I just heard from an email recipient that all of my emails are also actually being sent twice,so this seems like a bigger problem.
I am confused about the fix. I want to save a copy of my sent message. I just don't want to have two copies of the sent message. It seems to me that following the instructions will result in not having any copies of the sent messages. Please let me know if I am missing something. Thanks for any help and guidance!
Does your imap server save a copy of sent messages? If so, you don't want outlook to save a copy.
Try disabling the save sent option and send a few test messages. Is a copy saved in the sent folder on the server?
Do recipients still get two copies of the message?
On the duplicate messages - what do you use for antivirus? A 3rd party antivirus that scans outgoing mail can cause duplicates, especially on messages with attachments as it takes longer to scan the messages.