Outlook Tips

Learning Microsoft Outlook One Tip At A Time

Diane Poremsky [Outlook MVP]

Tip 508: Moving Sent Items

A user asks:

Is it possible to place a sent e-mail directly in a local pst folder rather than put it in the sent items folder on the server? When sending an email and using the options to store the email to a folder I can only choose a folder on the Exchange server.

Sure, you can use rules to move a copy to any folder. Open the Rules wizard and create a “Check messages after sending” rule, leaving the condition blank. If you set Outlook to not save any sent messages (Tools, Options, E-mail options), then all messages will be 'copied' to the local pst and none stored in the Exchange mailbox.

This method works to move sent messages to IMAP accounts as well, however if the connection to the server is interrupted and the sent message is not copied to the server, it’s gone forever as it will not be saved locally. (This method is not needed in Outlook 2007 and 2010 since those version have an option to save messages to the IMAP account’s Sent folder)

Published May 22, 2008. Last updated on December 10, 2012.

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