Deleting emails from distribution list

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to delete emails older then 1 year that get sent to one of our distribution lists that I'm part of, but I have trouble deleting more then 75 at once.

I tried creating a rule but it always returns "couldn't run rule on 0 items". This is how it set the rule. It runs for a while but then returns the same error, I event tried emails that include "email address",.. the emails were not moved to any other folder.

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Hi JoeBlack_,

Thank you for your detailed information.

I understand how inconvenient it is to manually delete emails, especially with such a large volume. Based on our tests, it appears that the default setting in the new Outlook only selects visible emails (up to 75) when you use the "Select All" option. This limitation makes it challenging to delete a large number of emails at once.

Given that your storage is 96% full, this might be the reason why the rule to delete emails is not running successfully. I recommend emptying items in deleted folder (Right click on the deleted items folder > Empty) and clearing emails in the Recoverable Items folder (Go to Deleted Items and Recover items from this folder, and then empty folder) in the new Outlook. If the folder is full, it can prevent the deletion of emails.

For more information about recoverable folder, please check Recoverable Items folder in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn

In the meantime, could you please let us know which subscription you are using? We will check if the Online Archive feature is available for your account, which could provide a more efficient solution for managing your email storage.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation. 

Sincerely,

Luckie Shi | Community Moderator.

Answer 2

Hi JoeBlack_,

Good day! Thank you for posting in the community.

I apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced while trying to delete emails older than one year from the distribution list. To better assist you, could you please provide the following information:

1. Account Type: Are you using a personal account (e.g., outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com), a business/school exchange account, or a third-party email account?
2. Mailbox Storage: What is the current storage usage of your mailbox in the New Outlook? Please check this by following these steps and send us a screenshot of this section:

• Log in to Outlook.
• Click on the Settings (gear icon) in the top-right corner.
• Select Accounts > Storage. Here, you will see a breakdown of how much space each folder in your mailbox is taking up.

Additionally, could you please share how you are attempting to delete these emails? Understanding your method will help us identify any potential limitations or alternative solutions. Specifically, you mentioned having trouble deleting more than 75 emails at once. Any details on your process would be helpful.

Your responses to these questions will help us diagnose the problem more accurately and find a suitable solution.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Have a nice day!

Sincerely,

Luckie Shi | Community Moderator.

Answer 3

1. Account type is a business exchange.
2. My storage (inbox folder) is 96% full thus the need to delete the older emails as they have a lot of attachments.

Well my process is very simple. I first tried deleting the mails by using the filter in the search bar, inputting the distribution email as "sent to", then ticking the (select all) box and pressing delete. The problem is that when you click select all, outlook selects only what is visible on the first page which is a max of 75 emails. You then have to manually repeat the process page by page and with more then 10.000 emails this will take for ever.

I then found on this forum that you could set a rule to delete them, so I created the rule shown in picture on my first post. But this does not delete the emails. It says "couldn't run rule on 0 items", and with over 15.000 emails this is impossible.

If there is another option to delete these I would love to hear it, I know there is a sweep option but that only applies to "from".