Forum Discussion
New Outlook: Moving all emails from one custom Folder back into Inbox?
I use Folders to aggregate emails from various stakeholders I am working with and some of the oldest Folders will have maybe a few thousand emails in them.
Trouble is some of those key stakeholders left the company and I now have a few useless Folders in Outlook that can be removed, but I do not want to delete the emails as they may still be needed for reference. Ideally I'd want to move them back to Inbox or an Archive folder.
So far I've tried selecting all emails and moving them, but Outlook does not allow that. I've also tried editing a rule for a stakeholder to move all their emails to Inbox, but that didn't work either as the "Run Rule Now" option disappears when I select Inbox.
Is there a way of doing this without manually selecting & moving emails by the dozen?
Create a Power Automate flow. Use this as a base: https://ivasoft.com/archiveemailsflow.shtml
A slight addition to the answer from Teresa_Cyrus.
Create a new PST file. Named something meaningful to you. e.g. "Inactive 2020". Move the inactive folders into this new PST. When done, right-click on the root folder of the PST and "Close ...". (Alternatively File -> Account Settings (2) -> Data Files, select the PST and "Remove"). This "disconnects" the PST file from Outlook. You can now keep it someplace safe and if you ever need the data just use the Data File dialog to Add it back.Hi Sevoris
I would like to suggest a different approach for you to consider.
If the stakeholders are no longer with the company or the project is inactive, but you want to retain the messages for reference purposes, I would not move the emails to the Inbox. The inbox represents active incoming messages.
I would create a custom folder titled INACTIVE. I am assuming you already have a folder by the person or project. I would move by dragging the entire folder to the Inactive folder and renaming the folder to include the timeframe. This way, you will not see the subfolders when the Inactive folder is collapsed. Here is an image of the structure folder.I also recommend that you understand your company's retention policy. Microsoft defaults to retaining messages for two years before they are deleted, but your company may have a different timeframe.
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#traccreations4e 3/4/2025You should be able to do this via Outlook/OWA, though they way it behaves for larger folders is a bit annoying. You need to make sure that all the items in the folder are loaded first, in other words you need to repeatedly scroll down until the "end". Once all the items are loaded, you will be able to see/use the "Move" action.
