Creating a rule for SENT and INBOX folders

Question

Hello Microsoft community,

At my company, there is a 30 day retention policy for emails. The only way to have emails stored longer is to create a subfolder and drag the emails into the subfolders. I would like to create a rule where all the emails contained within my INBOX and SENT folder are moved into two new subfolders INBOX-saved and SENT-saved. I would like to have the rule automatically COPY the emails from my inbox and sent folder so that I have duplicate copies of the emails in my INBOX-saved and SENT-folder. I am having trouble setting up a rule that will meet those conditions.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Hello AACWE,

Thank you for posting this case in the Microsoft Community!

Based on your description: Creating a rule for SENT and INBOX folders. I would like to cooperate with you to work on this case. To clarify this case, as further investigation and testing from my side, you may check the following workaround to create the rule for setting up that. Here are the steps as below:

1. You can create a rule in Outlook Web to automatically COPY the emails from your inbox folder to one specific folder.

Steps:

• Firstly, you need to sign in to Outlook Web with an email account and access Settingsoptions.
• Click Add a new rule and set the name for your rule > Under "Add a condition", select "Apply to all messages"
• Under "Add an action", select "Copy to" > then select your newly created folder such as Inbox-Saved.
• Finally, you can click the Savebutton and the rule will be synced in your Outlook for Windows after a while.

Please note:This rule will take effect for any incoming emails inthe Inbox folder. All emails already showing Inbox folder need to be moved to your specific Inbox-Savedfolder manually by pressing the Ctrl+A keyboard to select all of them.

2. Then you can create another rule in Outlook for Windows to automatically COPY the emails from your Sent Items folder to one specific folder.

Steps:

• Go to Classic Outlook>File>Manage Rules & Alerts.
• Click on New Rule.
• In Start from a blank rulesection choose Apply rule on the message I send. Click Next.
• Check through a specified accountin Step 1and add the account in Step 2. Click Next.
• Choose the option to move a copy to the specified folder. Add the new folder and then click on Finish.

Hope the above workaround will be helpful. If you need further assistance, please feel free to let me know, and I will keep assisting you.

Your understanding and patience will be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Eleni | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 2

Hi Elaine,

Thank you for responding to my question. I am not familiar with outlook on the web. I am used to using the desktop version. Would you know if these steps can be created on the desktop version?

Thanks in advance.