Outlook doesn't archive old emails

Question

Hi,

how is that still possible, that I need to change the regedit to achive only old mails by date and not by modified date.

It doesn't make sense for any human and cuasing only additional local IT effort tosolve that, because the people don't understand, if they choose that all email older as 3 moth doesn't show up at the archive?

Answer 1

Hi @Lusch, Rafael,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum!
Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughtful feedback regarding how Outlook handles email archiving. I completely understand how confusing and frustrating it can be when older emails aren’t archived as expected especially when resolving the issue requires editing the registry, which isn’t ideal for most users.

By default, Outlook uses the modified date to determine which emails to archive. This date can change whenever an email is moved, flagged, marked as read/unread, or categorized — even if the email was originally received months ago. As a result, many older emails may not be archived if they’ve been interacted with recently.

Unfortunately, Outlook currently doesn’t offer a built-in setting to switch to archiving by received date without using the registry. I completely understand that this workaround isn’t intuitive or user-friendly, and I truly appreciate your patience in navigating this limitation.

That said, your feedback is incredibly valuable. Microsoft actively gathers user input to improve product behavior, and I encourage you to share your experience directly through the Outlook app by going to Help > Feedback, or by visiting the https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback. Every voice helps shape future improvements, and yours could make a real difference.

If you’d like to know more about how the registry setting works, or if you have any other questions related to this issue, please feel free to let me know. I’m here to help.

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