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Question
Wednesday, July 9, 2014 6:52 PM | 2 votes
Many people have been getting this error message when trying to send an email in Outlook 2013 that has been auto-saved: "The operation cannot be performed because the message has been changed." This is a well-known problem. Is there a fix?
Thanks.
All replies (53)
Thursday, July 10, 2014 9:07 AM ✅Answered | 3 votes
Hi,
I did a test on my own Outlook 2013, I created a message and waited to let Outlook auto-save it, then sent the email without this error.
Kindly let me know what type of account you are using? Exchange, IMAP or POP? I've seen some similar issues are with IMAP accounts. If it is IMAP accounts in your scenario, please go to FILE -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> Double click the IMAP account -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK. This has helped some users.
We can also disable the anti-virus program to test if this issue persists, since sometimes the email scanner may be interfering with this.
Regards,
Melon Chen
TechNet Community Support
Saturday, August 2, 2014 3:52 PM
Thank you - This appears to have corrected my problem
Monday, August 11, 2014 6:56 AM
Ten days ago I installed the latest Outlook 2013 / Office 365 download on a new Lenovo Z40 Windows 8.1 PC - it has been a series of failures -
* Outlook gives the message: "The operation cannot be performed because the message has been changed" - and then goes slow - so I sometimes lose drafts that I've worked on - and other times have to copy to new emails.
I read your email and made the change to Root folder path ... and then -
* Outlook crashed, and deleted an entire folder off my IMAP server... Causing me to lose some emails. So I undid your recommended change.
* In addition, now Outlook gives the message: "This item is no longer valid because the message has been closed" - so I sometimes lose drafts that I've worked on - and other times have to copy to new emails.
I regularly run Windows Update and haven't seen any updates for Outlook - even though I see the IMAP bug is months old - what am I missing?
Tuesday, August 19, 2014 4:23 PM
I recently bought a new PC with Outlook 13, and I get this problem every time I leave an e-mail for a bit and then try to send it later - even just an hour means I can't either send it or save it. This is very annoying indeed, and never happened on previous versions of Outlook which I have been using for many many years. Microsoft, what have you done - and when will you fix it? I don't dare try the fix you suggest above due to the impact on RichardL33...
From Google, it is immediately clear that many people have this problem.
Help!
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 6:33 PM
I tried this with Office 365 and now I cannot delete a message and I have folders missing. When I try to delete a message I get a message that says it is already deleted. I also do not understand why the problem with sending a message and getting a message that it can't be sent because it has been changed has not been fixed.
Monday, September 8, 2014 2:33 PM | 3 votes
This did not help me. I am on a Surface Pro, Win 8.1 and the Office 2013 ver 15.046.
I have three IMAP accounts feeding emails into my inbox.
I can open and read emails or mark them as read without opening them. When I go to move some into a folder (to categorize my read emails), I get this message. I usually can then move all the emails below the first read one and they will move okay. I can then move the one that was at the top of that set of emails, into the same folder, with no problem. So, in other words, I can't move the full set together but can move them in two batches (all of the list except the first, then the first). This is clearly an OUTLOOK issue related to IMAP accounts. THIS NEEDS MICROSOFT'S ATTENTION, PLEASE.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014 3:40 PM
I have been getting his error message recently. I purchased a standalone Outlook 2013 last year, which runs on my Windows 7 64 bit PC. In July my wife bought a laptop, which is on our LAN, and Office 365. Maybe the messages started then, I cannot be sure. It displays during conditions mentioned by the other people posting here. Today I got the message after reading an e-mail and attempting to store it directly in an Outlook folder before closing it – no replying, no editing, no extended delay. I did click on a link in it to view a commercial web page. I then closed the message and attempted to store it with the result being the display of the error message. I always have the latest updates installed automatically.
The above was on 9/9/2014. On 9/10/2014 I opened a commercial e-mail and clicked to have the graphics downloaded. I then closed the e-mail and was prompted if I wanted to keep the changes. I selected yes and then the message displayed that says the e-mail could not be saved because it had been changed. I opened the e-mail again to get the wording of the first prompt and found that the graphics had been saved and there was no prompt. I then closed the e-mail and noticed that now there were two copies of it in the inbox. I believe this is not the designed behavior of Outlook. A fix is needed.
Monday, September 29, 2014 1:15 AM
I agree - a fix is needed. This just started happening to me about 3 weeks ago. I have Office 365 on a 64-bit Win7 machine. I upgraded to Win 365 a few months ago and everything was fine with Outlook until this started happening a few weeks ago. It's really irritating and a productivity sync.
Monday, September 29, 2014 1:15 PM | 4 votes
I was able to fix this error by typing “Inbox” in the "Root folder path" and changing the Conversation Clean up option to allow the original message to be moved when the reply was modified.
Step 1 Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail tab -> Change -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK.
Step 2 File -> Options -> Mail -> Under "Conversation Clean Up" Uncheck "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" -> OK.
Monday, October 6, 2014 3:27 PM
That doesn't work for me. It's been getting worse and worse, now today I can't use Outlook. So back to Thunderbird. Sad that Microsoft hasn't fixed IMAP.
Monday, October 6, 2014 5:17 PM
I have found I can move the final item by switching off the reading pane then switching it back on again.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014 3:21 PM
I don't know if this will work for all, but I copied the email I was trying to reply to onto my desktop. From the desktop I reopened the message and I was able to send without getting that nasty message!
Thursday, October 9, 2014 9:05 PM
Hi Melon,
I tried the change you have suggested and ALL of my folders in that account disappeared from Outlook.
I removed this change and set "Root folder path" back to empty and all the folders re-appeared again.
So this is NO fix as the side effect of this is much worse than the problem it is trying to solve.
The IMAP support in Outlook is embarrassingly bad!
Regards,
Simon
Wednesday, December 3, 2014 9:34 AM
Hi, I am consistently getting this message when I open an email from the Inbox to read it, then close it (without making any 'changes'), and then try to move it to a folder. A way around this is to re-open the email and 'save' it. This gives a different message 'This item cannot be saved because it has been changed by another user' (So??) 'Do you want to make a copy in the default folder?'. I reply 'Yes'. I then have 2 copies of the email. I delete he original and can file the copy. NB I am accessing a Gmail account via Outlook using IMAP. I will try the folder 'Advanced' (*Root Folder Path = Inbox) *solution suggested, but I note that one user in this chain had problems with folders disappearing with this solution . . . .
OK tried the 'Root folder path = Inbox' suggestion and, yes, all my filing folders disappeared, so NOT RECOMMENDED. Fortunately they re-appeared when I blanked the field out again!
Thursday, January 15, 2015 8:58 AM | 1 vote
Thank you Simon!!
Option 2 (Conversation Clean-up) worked immediately for me.
My problem was the version arising when I tried to move certain messages from my Inbox to another folder.
Ian
Wednesday, January 21, 2015 10:59 PM | 1 vote
I was able to fix the problem by unchecking ALL boxes under "conversation cleanup" section. The one you mentioned, "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" - was not enough in my situation. Thanks for leading me to the right place!!
Friday, March 13, 2015 3:07 AM
I just started using Office 365 instead of reinstalling via my DVD, and this suggestion helped me with this problem, and allows me to ignore rebuilding my entire index for 4 drives, which was another suggested solution!
Wednesday, May 13, 2015 10:40 AM
This helped me. Thanks
Thursday, July 23, 2015 11:58 AM
The path you gave does not exist on my Outlook 2013 (Office 365). Under File, there is no "Account settings." There is "office account," but no settings there either. What is the path I need for the 365 Outlook 2013, to fix this annoying problem of "item cannot be saved because it was changed by another user"?
Friday, August 28, 2015 12:12 AM
I tried this and it only helped on one account.
Another factor seems to be if the inbox has changed because the email address has been saved to favourites to get it to the top of the list for ease of use.
Also I have some that are IMAP and others pop, seems there is no difference, I feel the problem is with Outlook 2013 and needs a patch made PLEASE! my inbox is overflowing and I cant move to folders. I can reply and send but not move and its random, some will but most wont.
When you find a solution, can you send us all an email?
cheers
Willow10
Friday, August 28, 2015 12:17 AM
I agree, but cannot move multiples at the same time.
When I highlighted 6 emails and pressed delete, it deleted 4657 that had just come in with new installation. GREAT!
this IS a MICROSOFT ISSUE and needs their immediate attention.... after all aus Post is all bar out of business and this IS our business eithic now. Come on guys...!!!!!!
Friday, August 28, 2015 12:29 AM
Step 2 is a brilliant suggestion - it works on pop but not on IMAP - back tot he drawing board, but thanks.
Monday, August 31, 2015 4:23 AM
Hello Microsoft, This issue has been going on for a YEAR and a HALF now.
I never had this issue using Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010.
I using Outlook 2013 on a routine IMAP server.
The other related stupid thing that Outlook 2013 does is that it won't allow you to set the Flag if the message changes from Unread to Read while you have the message selected. You have to select another message, then re-select the message (now Unread, and no status change) then you can set the Flag.
I've tried all the suggestions in this forum and the answers forum. None of them work for me: The Inbox folder/root path thing, the DLLs, disabling COM Add-Ins, Safe Mode.
Office 2013 is not worth the upgrade and I can't recommend it.
I do not have this issue using eM Client.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015 9:45 PM
It's September and still no fix. I tried the Root "Inbox" solution and like the others, folders disappeared. Fortunately they reappeared when I blanked out the "Root" field.
I'm running 2013 on Win 10 and for the past year have had problems with sending replies and filing messages in folders. Here are the workarounds I've been using:
For filing messages - If I am viewing messages and decide to move one from the inbox to a pst folder I often get the "message changed" error. I find that if I then click on any other message in the inbox and then click back on the one I want to move, the move will perform properly. Apparently, the first click on the message changed the "read" attribute and that's detected as a change. The second click must reset the change attribute and allows me to move the message.
For replies - If I start to reply to a message and wait too long (enough for an autosave) and then try to send the reply I get the error message. When that happens I copy my reply text, close the reply message without saving it, start another reply to the same original message and paste the copied text back in. Since it had no time to autosave it properly sends the reply.
You don't even want to get me started on the annoyance of this and the quirky "lost" reply drafts if I have to alt-tab to another application to get information while doing a in-line reply. But maybe these tips will help others who aren't ready to dump Outlook.
Saturday, September 5, 2015 9:46 AM
Thank you, this worked for me.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015 12:57 PM
Use EM mail client. Its the free version of Outlook at works much better and doesn't have this IMAP issue. I was struggling with this same error for over a year until I got feed up and switched. http://www.emclient.com/
Wednesday, November 4, 2015 2:01 PM
I installed Windows 10 and Outlook 2016. The problem with the "message changed" error has only gotten worse. Now I can't even click on another item, then click back on the error item to get it to move. It's permanently fixed as "unmovable" - even if I delete it. I can't move it from trash to the right folder.
Going on 3 years now I would think MS engineers could get around to fixing something this bad.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015 1:06 AM
I have found a very easy way to get around it, although it is so easy that it doesn't make sense to have to do it. When I try to move a message from the Inbox and I see that message, I just click on the message above it or below it in the Inbox list and then go click back to the message that I want to move. After I do that, I can move the message that I had wanted to move and it no longer says I can't do it because the message has been changed.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 6:26 PM
I realize this thread is old, but I've been having exactly the same problem since I installed Outlook 2013. I have three email accounts and it happens to every one of them, regardless of IMAP or POP3.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016 10:10 PM
That's NOT a good fix as it made my SENT folder and all subsequent folders disappear in Outlook. Scared the hell outta me. Taking Inbox back out of the root folder returned it to normal.
Monday, May 23, 2016 3:18 PM
Step 2 did the trick for me as all the Conversation Clean up were checked once I unchecked I was able to move the files.
Saturday, May 28, 2016 12:53 AM
Byron, did you ever find a fix for the "reply" error. I have already spent countless hours on the phone with MS tech types off shore and they all want to blame my IMAP host (Go Daddy). Did you ever find a definitive solution?
Sunday, May 29, 2016 4:33 PM
Thanks for your simple solution to the problem with filing messages. That did it for me! Thanks again.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 3:04 AM
I'm still having this problem with Outlook 2016. My exchange account works fine, but I have an IMAP account where I can't clear flags on items. This is ridiculous that such a simple, common feature doesn't work and has failed to work for multiple Outlook versions.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016 6:57 PM | 1 vote
This seemed to work for me ..
I disabled all COM add-ins ... didn't use them anyway
Monday, August 22, 2016 6:28 PM
Thank you - This appears to have corrected my problem
Friday, December 2, 2016 10:18 AM
I was able to fix this error by typing “Inbox” in the "Root folder path" and changing the Conversation Clean up option to allow the original message to be moved when the reply was modified.
Step 1 Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail tab -> Change -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK.
Step 2 File -> Options -> Mail -> Under "Conversation Clean Up" Uncheck "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" -> OK.
I have a new computer with a fresh install of Office Home and Business 2016 and Windows 7 x64 operating system.
I tried option 1 that was suggested by another user and this meant that all my sub folders disappeared which gave me a heart attack! I undid the "inbox" amendment and they returned :)
I thought I'd try the step 2 suggested by ERCH91480 without using step 1 and so far so good. I can now mark emails as flagged and I can move emails into my sub folders.
Thanks :) :)
Saturday, December 31, 2016 4:22 PM
Finally, after a week of annoying messages, a solution that actually works. Thank you Gary Banta.
Thursday, January 19, 2017 7:22 PM
I had the same issues. The only thing I had to do to cure it was disable Kaspersky Virus add-in. THe spam add-in seems to work OK.
Thursday, February 9, 2017 5:36 PM
Thank you, Melon. I had email protection enabled in Kaspersky Internet Security in Windows 10. I disabled the protection and now I can move emails around from folder to folder!
Saturday, March 11, 2017 11:15 AM
This did not work for me. I have Outlook 2016.
Saturday, March 11, 2017 11:16 AM
This did not work for me. I have Outlook 2016
Saturday, March 11, 2017 11:17 AM
This did also worked form me in Outlook 2016
Monday, March 13, 2017 8:45 AM
I have the same problem as you on my Lenovo ideacentre PC. Folders in my Outlook "just disappeared" leaving me in all sorts of trouble. My local "Computer Nerds" charged me a fortune to look for them, but to no avail.
Now I'm battling to move emails to folders because of this error message. Very frustrating and I'm not seeing Microsoft jumping into action.
Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:14 AM
step 2 worked. Thank you very much.
Saturday, May 20, 2017 2:41 PM
Finally, a fix that actually works. It's a pain, but it's a work around. I've been trying to deal with the "can't move because it changed" issue for months. It keeps pushing be back to old systems and software where I can effectively manage my email. Unfortunately those systems are slowing dying. I've tried all the solutions others have set forth, but none have worked. This one does.
When the email won't move, close it, click (don't have to open) another email, then without opening the email you want to move, drag and drop it. It works every time.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 2:10 PM
This is exactly what I must do to get around the problem. Once I have read a message if I want to move it to another folder or flag it for follow up I must click on another message and then I can perform the action on the original message. This is consistent. Not once has the NOT happened. There is not viable excuse from Microsoft other than this is a bug in Outlook that they refuse to acknowledge to the general public. All the ridiculous steps they have been having customers make throughout this thread and I'm sure during support calls has only been to reflect the blame away from them because they have not been able to find the bug. Every user of Outlook 2013 and above I have spoken to has this same issue! Microsoft, it is time you step up and take responsibility for the software you produce. No more excuses, fix it!
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 8:04 PM
@ERCH91480 - step 2 seems to be the magic for me - many thanks. Note that Step 1 eliminated my ability to subscribe to any of the IMAP folders I had formerly been able to see, but the data is still OK on the server (whew!). I guess they were all peer-level folders because the folders nested under my inbox were unaffected.
@MS - the frequency of this error being encountered (and impeding users) should inspire you to UNCHECK the "when a reply modifies a message..." by default. For shame. I've been using Outlook long enough to remember the trauma-turned-to-delight when IT replaced my cc:mail with Outlook. FIX THIS PROBLEM - it, ALL BY ITSELF, is a compelling reason to transition to Thunderbird.
Saturday, July 8, 2017 11:21 PM
I performed the following operation and all my folders except inbox disappeared.I closed and re-opened outlook 2016, undid "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" and folders re-appeared
I had to recreate new sub-folder and was able to move the item to that folder.
oh well, shit happens.
Sunday, February 11, 2018 5:03 PM
THANK YOU - this has been a super annoyance to me for years when I have a non-spam email in the "spam" folder - I right click "junk", then "not junk" and then when I try to select "always trust email from this sender" from the popup, i have about .5seconds before I get the error message. I unchecked ALL the conversation cleanup setting boxes (here is a link to where the settings are - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-conversation-clean-up-to-eliminate-redundant-messages-4a0aa10b-8342-4f75-b78c-2b8ca23eca8d )and it works fine now. I think it was probably one of the "don't move...." that was causing it since Outlook had moved it to the Spam folder, it must have a flag it attaches. YAY!
Friday, June 22, 2018 1:47 PM
Hello all: The workaround that is working on outlook 2016 and office 365 clients is uncheck all options under Mail> Conversation Clean up. in my case the issue was on Microsoft Office standard 2016 with windows 7x64 OS. For any other configurations check please use the tool https://diagnostics.outlook.com/ Thanks Farooq Zones
Saturday, June 30, 2018 7:28 AM
Hi, I have the same problem on the latest Outlook 2013 / Office 365, I just delete the message & then you can move it to inbox or where you want it.
Sunday, June 16, 2019 1:29 PM
Wish I'd seen that BEFORE trying this. **NOT RECOMMENDED** !!!