Tip 851: Replies and Forwards are placed in the Inbox, not Sent Items folder

A user complains

“When I reply to or forward a message the reply/forward is in my Inbox, not my Sent items folder. This only happens with Hotmail and IMAP accounts, not POP3."

Using the option to ‘Save copies with the original if not in the Inbox’ is a known cause. This setting is in Tools, Options, Email options, Advanced in older versions; in Outlook 2010, it’s in File, Options, Mail – about halfway down in the Save message section.

This is not the expected behavior, but Outlook sometimes gets confused when you have multiple Inboxes.

Published April 2, 2011. Last updated on August 15, 2012.

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