Microsoft Outlook is the primary email management software that businesses regularly use to manage their email messages. The user can add email accounts from multiple types of email servers and enjoy great features. Now, Outlook is available in the Microsoft 365 subscription plan and you can also purchase it independently. Due to the trust of its users, Outlook has gained a prominent market space among all email applications.
The user does not expect any misdeeds in the account and when the emails are disappeared are direct to deleted items folder, then the user may consider that a malware attack has happened. Many users are not aware of the fact that Outlook automatically deleting emails. Here is a scenario where the user is surprised about the abrupt deletion of emails-
“I have been using Outlook since 2003 with the Exchange Server and never made changes in the default settings. But, for the past 3 months, the emails are constantly deleting themselves. I did not make any changes in the settings and created a password to access the account. Perhaps, there is a virus in my system and affecting Outlook badly.”
Main reasons behind why Outlook automatically deleting emails
There can be several causes behind the automatic deletion of emails. The following points will enlist all the reasons and how you can change them and overcome the deletion of emails and also recover them.
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Rules in Outlook
Rules in Outlook enforce a defined action on Outlook account at various levels. When the Outlook user’s account belongs to a business, then the Administrator can create Rules without informing the user. You need to check the Rules in Outlook and see if a particular rule forces to Outlook automatically deleting emails.
The Rule Wizard has many options where the emails can be deleted/permanently deleted and moved to another folder easily. You can set an easy parameter that will move the email to another folder or delete it completely.
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Ignoring Conversation
When you right-click to any message, then an option is present in the list called Ignore. If you click it, then it will prompt a message that the selected conversation and all its future message will move to a Deleted Folder. The Ignore Conversation will make sure that the whole message is gone to the Deleted Folder.
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Moving the Conversation
When the user right-clicks to any message, then the list has the option to move the conversion to another folder. The user can easily choose any folder and the entire conversion will go to the respective folder.
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The outlook is synced on multiple devices
The Outlook application can be synced on the computer as well as smartphones from Android and iOS. If the user has synced the same account on multiple devices, then the messages can be deleted on smartphones and they will disappear from the computer’s application also.
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Anti-malware add-on in Outlook
The third-party add-ons in Outlook help increase the productivity of Outlook. The anti-malware software provides the add-ons that users can add in Outlook and scan the incoming emails. If the incoming mail is fishy and the add-on considers it unsafe, then it will delete it directly without informing the user.
We have shown you all the common features in Outlook that enable the user to move or delete the complete conversation. The Administrator of the account can access the account with the user’s knowledge and delete the messages also. So, the user should check out all the possible causes and check why Outlook automatically deleting emails.
Conclusion
MS Outlook has many features that can move or delete the emails present in the inbox or any other folder. If you can find the correct cause of why Outlook automatically deleting emails, then you can adjust it to save useful messages. You can also disable the anti-virus add-on and stop scanning of email.
If the email is consistently disappearing from Outlook mailbox after checking all the given causes, then it means that the PST data file that has the user’s mailbox is affected by corruption. A subtle attack of corruption does not give any error while using Outlook, but it steals the emails and makes them disappear from the account. So, you should use professional PST Repair software that will recover the complete mailbox from the PST file and also recover deleted items. Some software denotes the recovered deleted emails in separate colors for easy identification.
My Outlook 2016 was also doing the same with my emails. Then I followed the steps given above. Removing the Outlook rules fixed my issue. I am glad to fix it by myself. Thank you