Outlook “Sent Items” Hack

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