Outlook “Sent Items” Hack
June 5, 2006
For years, Outlook’s inability to have Sent Items go anywhere but the Sent Items folder has been a little pet peeve of mine. It might seem a little counterintuitive, but I really like everything I send to end up in my inbox where I sort it, file it, set up a “next action” ala GTD, etc. Up until now I’d just move the contents of my Sent Items folder to the Inbox folder every once in a while. Well, reading CNXN’s article on using Outlooks without folders finally gave me a bit of a nudge, and a quick google turned up the following bit of code. Open Outlook’s Visual Basic editor, go to the ThisOutlookSession object, paste in the following code, save, restart Outlook, and anything that appears in Sent Items will immediately be moved ot the Inbox.
Public WithEvents SentItems As Outlook.Items
Private Sub Application_Startup()
Set SentItems = _
Outlook.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderSentMail).Items
End Sub
Private Sub Application_Quit()
Set SentItems = Nothing
End Sub
Private Sub SentItems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
Item.Move _
Outlook.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
End Sub
How about moving the Exchange Mailbox Sent Items (default) to the Sent Items in my Personal Folder?
Dan: You might try Sperry’s new Sent Items organizer add-in. I’m using it in place of the above code these days. Not only does it let you route email to your choice of folder but it lets you specify rules to determine what goes where:
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook/Sent-Items-Organizer.asp
Even simpler than VBA - Use Outlook features to do this:
1) Add a rule to move a copy of sent items to Inbox
2) Turn off “Save copies of messages in Sent Items folder” in Tools…Options…Preferences…Email options
Sugah…that is moronically simple. I assumed there would be no “Sent” message to copy (with the rule) if you turn off the “Save copies of Sent Messages” option. I’ve been just keeping duplicates (in Sent Items and Inbox)…this is beautiful.
This is fantastic. This has bugged the crap out of me for some time now. Thanks for the great post.
The problem I have with the rule is it makes the message unread and it seems that since it is a copy it is not actually received mail so an additional received rule does not mark it read. Any ideas.
I can’t believe I never thought of anything as obvious as Sugahs suggestion. This worked like a charm.
Now I can manage my email with a better GTD workflow. Thanks for the post.
Hello,
I would like that outlook ask me for each sent mail if I want to classify this sent mail in a specific folder.