Friday, September 16, 2011

Unable to Remove or Delete Folder due to Outlook Synchronization?

Sometimes Microsoft Outlook just can’t able to give a better user friendly message. This clear offline items issue is a good example. :)

Yesterday when I was trying to organize my folders in my Inbox, I moved one of my Inbox folder to my PST folder but I got the following error message:

 “Outlook has not finished synchronizing local changes made to items in this folder. You can not remove this folder until the synchronization with the server is complete.”
FYI: In case you do not know,  PST folder is the personal outlook file that stored in your hard disk rather than your email server. The file extension is *.pst.  Your folders or all your emails in your Inbox are stored in the email server not in your hard disk.


So, what will you do after you see this message? Yes, you will wait until the synchronizing is done then you only proceed to move your folders. Unfortunately after 2 days, the error message remains the same. What a crap?


Workaround Solutions

Well luckily I found a solution. I don’t know there will be any data lost due to synchronization. But hey, what did you do with the synchronization until 2 days also haven’t finished? Let’s check it out my solution.


Basically the workaround is very simple. You just need to disable “Cached Exchange Mode”. After that you can move or do whatever your want with your inbox folder. You can enable back the “Cached Exchange Mode” after that if you wish.


(1) Go to Menu Tools –> Account Settings…
(2) Double click on your email account.


(3) You will see this (Microsoft Exchange Settings):


(4) Just uncheck the “Use Cached Exchange Mode”. You're now done!
(5) Do whatever you want (e.g. delete or move) your MS inbox folder.
(6) Repeat step (1) –> (3) and check it back the “Use Cached Exchange Mode”

Note: Cached exchange mode basically allows you to view your outlook content during offline. This is extremely useful if your connection to your Microsoft Exchange email is very bad. This is usually for a laptop or mobile users where most of the time you want to view your outlook content offline. If you’re a desktop user and the connection is always good, you may consider not to use this cached exchange mode feature at all.

P/S: Also, I don't see any data lost after moving the folder. So I guess it should be safe? Hope this helps!

8 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Very helpful! Many thanks for helping me solve my issue!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much -- you rock! this was driving me crazy!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Thank you Thank you
I can' belive how much time spent reading MS arttcles for this task, and your instructions helped me in seconds. YOU ROCK.....

ChampDog said...

You're welcome! :)

Anonymous said...

OMG! Thank you so much! I was having to create folders and move files. Finally, thought, there's got to be a better way. Fortunately, your article was the first link I selected. It sounded too simple to be true but amazingly, it worked like magic!!! :)

Jan Petrus said...

I had same problem, but I don´t use Exchange Server (so I don´t see the checkbox you mention).

Anyway, I also could not rename or delete folders (they kept coming back).
I found out simple solution:
1) switch off internet connection
2) do the changes
3) restart outlook
4) connect again.

Changes will remain.

Maybe someone will find it useful.

Jan

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot! Worked like a charm!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Champdog!


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