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 Sperrys new Sent Items organizer add-in. Im 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.
Sugah .. How to add this rule to move a copy of sent items to Inbox ???
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Hi again,
I found solution for my question and more details at this link http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2007/10/05/ultimate-inbox-merging-inbox-and-sent-items-folders.aspx
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how do I NOT have my sent emails in my inbox?
I am a layman so go easy on the technical stuff in telling me how to only have sent emails in my sent box.
thanks
I know this post is old, but there's another way using VBA that might be a bit more direct. You can use the MailItem.SaveSentMessageFolder
Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
If TypeName(Item) = “MailItem” Then
Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Set olApp = Outlook.Application
Set objNS = olApp.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)
Set objFolder = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set Item.SaveSentMessageFolder = objFolder
End If
Set objFolder = Nothing
Set objNS = Nothing
Set olApp = Nothing
End Sub
I tired this last VBA snippet that JP posted and it works perfect in outlook 2007. I think I'm going with this option over the rules option because it actually moves the message so if you use Conversation View like I like to do, everything sorts properly. Much better than moving a copy in my opinion.
So this works only when you have one outlook profile. When you have more than one, nothing seems to happen… Any tips?
nvm… i got it sorted. turns out someone permanently disabled our macros and as such, this stopped running. i'll re-add two profiles, retest, and report back.
At http://www.sendandmove.com you find a Outlook AddIn, which asks you in which folder you like to move your mail after sending. It works also with different pst folders.
The tool Send And Move tries to suggest you related folders based on a search algorithm.
Will this work in Outlook 2k3?
If you have Outlook 2003, just create a custom search folder and look in both the inbox and sent items folder and don’t give a criteria. You have what you are looking for without having to monkey with the defaults.
Here’s how to create a search folder:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100389111033.aspx?pid=CH100777411033#3
it works great in office 2007; i’ve been searching for a while. before i was using a rule after sendig email to move a copy to inbox without auto saving setting activated, but the inconvenience of this is this copy is a unread email
All the best,
amplatfus
Dear Russ,
If you are using follow up feature only for you, not for the recipents, you will need to manualy move those emails to inbox in order to make reminder working.
I would recomend this as the fastest fix, you need Outlook 2007 SP2 (not 100% sure of the patch level, but July ‘09 should be fine).
Add this reg key and Outlook will put the sent mail in the correct box:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences]
“DelegateSentItemsStyle”=dword:00000001
This works.
\Svenn-Erik
Dear Svenn-Erik,
My apologies to you and JP and forgive my complete ignorance but would either of you send me or post a link(s) to walk me through the “reg key” or VBA set up processes? Problematic hosted exchange issues forced a gmail forward rule to get Outlook email to my mobile and now my sent items are out of control! I can’t just deactiveate sent items copies & reroute to inbox b/c it similar issues. Many Thanks, CRO
for outlook 2003, when using a rule to send a copy to inbox, the message shows up as UNREAD. is there anyway to make it so the message shows up as read?
upgrading outlook isnt really an option.
let me know! thanks
Thanks JP. The code snip worked perfect.
I also added an outlook rule to assign the category “SentItems” to all sent messages so I can filter them if needed.
Cheers,
J