All Internal emails are going in to Deleted\Junk folder and there are 'no rules' at all.

Question

Only internal emails arrive at his inbox, they stay in for 10seconds to 2min and then get moved to Deleted Items sub folder Junk. External emails stay in inbox no issue there.
The user has no rules in mailbox. I have checked it on outlook as well as webmail. I have used MFCMapi app to inspect user mailbox and I could not see any user rules or damaged rules in there.
Even if you move any emails from DELETED\JUNK to any other folder it jumps back to DELETED\JUNK folder.
I called Microsoft and they did some back end stuff and emails stopped moving to JUNK for few hours but its started again.
I like to know if others are having this issue or anything.

Answer 1

Glad to say that I have found a solution for this problem.

The user was using Samsung S10 Phone and 'Email' app on the phone as email client. By mistake the user selected one of the internal email and marked is as Junk. Because its a Samsung App, the rule stayed in the Samsung App on the phone and not transfer to outlook cloud we could not see this rule in user profile in exchange admin. This also caused sporadic movement of messages (sometimes message stays in inbox for hour or other times few min) By deleting this rule would solve this problem but if the problem persists then follow the steps below.

If anyone user facing a problem where email is coming in to InBox then moving elsewhere in the information store then

1. Delete all Email profile from outlook, mobile phone tablets and any other laptops or devices user own.
2. Using the webclient, delete all user rules (you could backup the rules before)
3. Using Webmail at office.com check if the message is still going in to junk/spam folders
4. If it is then use MFCMapi to delete the junk rule from the list and check. Link to show how to delete rule: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/troubleshoot/administration/delete-junk-email-rules-mfcmapi-exchange
5. Ask the user to login to webmail and If email has stopped going to junk mail then re-create a new profile in all devices.

Answer 2

Hello Melanie,
We never created a new account because we found the rule was created in EMAIL app on Samsung phone which was deleting the messages and rules created in another app do not show up on Exchange or outlook. So once we deleted this rule from Email app on mobile phone we solved the problem.

Please check if the user has email setup on mobile phone and check rules there.

Answer 3

Hi @Azam Ali ,

Does this issue only happen to this specific user? Do other Internal users have the same issue as well?

To further confirm if the issue is related to your Outlook client, please try to receive internal emails via your web mail(without using Outlook desktop client) to see if the issue could also be reproduced there.

By the way, I noticed that you mentioned that the Junk folder is sub folder of Deleted Items folder. As I know, usually each mailbox has its dedicated Junk folder in the folder list. So, how will be the issue going if you remove this subfolder? Before operations, please remember to back up your data.

Besides, there could be some add-ins in your Outlook client that cause this issue, so it is also suggested to start your Outlook in safe mode (Press Win + R, type “outlook /safe”, press Enter.) and see if the issue continues.

Any update, please feel free to post back.

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Answer 4

Hello Jeff Yang,
Yes the problem is with only one user, all other users are ok. I even created a junk folder in my deleted items and receive email but it didnt go in junk.
The folder name is junk that is located in deleted folder but its not the system Junk folder because system Junk is still present at root level and some external junk mail is going in that folder.

After your message, I did empty out the deleted folder, but in doing so the new emails started going missing completely which is even worse now. I have started recovering the deleted items and i hope emails will not be lost. I did think that deleting the junk folder and empty out deleted items will help but in this case it didnt.

There are no addins on outlook client.

I have not done safe mode with outlook but as the problem persists with webmail I do not believe this is an issue with outlook app.

I think I will have to create a new account for the user and move him across to it by copying his emails and one drive.

Answer 5

Hi @Azam Ali ,

Thanks for your update.

So for being a little confused here, have you got your issue fixed yet?

Do you mean that the issue still continues after creating a new account for the user and moving him across to it by copying his emails and one drive?

If the issue still exists, personally, I think it might be unlikely that Outlook rule is causing this issue. When creating outlook rules, we need to configure which specified folder to move. While in your case, after you remove the sub folder, the issue still continues. In order to completely eliminate the Outlook rule factor, maybe you could try to run "/cleanrules" command-line (Exit your Outlook client, Press Win + R, type “outlook /cleanrules”, press Enter.) and see how is everything going.
Important: If you have multiple or additional mailboxes in your Outlook profile, running the /cleanrules command line switch deletes the rules from all connected mailboxes. Therefore, it is recommended that you only run this command when your Outlook profile only contains the one, target mailbox.

By the way, from the perspective of the Outlook client, please check your Junk Email settings and make sure you have not add internal email address or domain to your block list.

If you have already got this issue fixed, would you mind marking helpful reply as answer so that others who might have a similar question can benefit from your thread? Thanks for your understanding and support.

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