Intermittently Unable to Move Emails to Folders in Outlook

Question

In the new Outlook app I am sometimes unable to drag emails into folders on the left side of the screen. When I press and hold over an email a red circle with a slash through it appears and I can't move it. Other times it seems to work just fine. Curious if anyone else has experienced this and if they had any luck identifying the cause or fixing it.

Answer 1

Dear Theo,

Good day, and thank you for reaching out to the Q&A Forum. As a forum moderator, I genuinely wish I could directly access your mailbox to diagnose and resolve this for you. Unfortunately, my role here is limited to providing general guidance and steps you can try from your side.

To be upfront, I am not aware of a published Microsoft known issue that specifically describes intermittent drag-and-drop failures in New Outlook. I also tried to replicate the behavior on my side, and drag-and-drop worked as expected, with the usual indicator appearing when dragging a message into a folder. To help me narrow this down, could you please share a few more details?

• Does it happen with all messages, or only some? For example, only messages with large attachments, encrypted messages, or messages from a specific sender.
• Are you moving messages within your own mailbox, or into a shared or delegated mailbox?
• When drag-and-drop fails, does Right-click > Move still work?
• Does the issue occur in a specific view? For example, while viewing search results, Favorites, a filtered view, or a normal folder view.
• Is anyone else in your organization experiencing a similar issue?
• Is it always the same destination folders that fail, or does it vary?
• Does the issue persist after restarting Outlook, or does it typically resolve on its own after a while?
• Are you using a mouse, a trackpad, or a touchscreen when dragging?
• When did this start, and did anything change around that time (such as an Outlook update, a Windows update, or a new mailbox being added)?
• What is your current New Outlook version? You can find this under Settings > General > About Outlook.

If possible, please also share a screenshot of what you see when the red circle with the slash appears, with any sensitive information masked before uploading. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Looking forward to your reply.

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Answer 2

In the new Outlook app I am sometimes unable to drag emails into folders on the left side of the screen. When I press and hold over an email a red circle with a slash through it appears and I can't move it. Other times it seems to work just fine. Curious if anyone else has experienced this and if they had any luck identifying the cause or fixing it.