Dragging e-mails to System folders

[David French]

I have users that are dragging e-mails from Outlook and dropping them into a
folder on their computer or a Network folder.
The issue comes when there is an e-mail that has an identical Subject line.
This is an issue since when the e-mail is dropped it is named using the
subject line. For instance if the subject line is Today's Lunch, the file
name will be Today's Lunch.msg.
Now, later another e-mail with a subject line of Today's Lunch is dragged to
the same folder ends up OVERWRITING the first e-mail.
This is NOT a desireable action since it is just as important to have the
first e-mail as is the second.
If multiple e-mails are dragged at the SAME TIME they will end up named
differently, BUT when they are dragged at DIFFERENT times is when there is a
problem.
Does anyone have an idea of what to do to keep ALL the e-mails and get the
names to change?

Dave French

 

[Winfred Weng [MSFT]]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for posting here! My name is Winfred, and I will be working with
you on this issue.

I assume that you are using Outlook 2003 on Windows XP. Based on my tests,
I can reproduce the same behavior on my side:

1. When I drag several emails with the same subject (let's assume it to be
"test") from Outlook to a folder, for example, the desktop, it will saved
as test.msg, test(1).msg, and so on.

2. However, if there is already a test.msg existed on the desktop, I will
receive the following dialog when I try to move a second email with the
subject "test" from Outlook to the desktop:

"This folder already contains a file named 'test.msg'.
Would you like to replace the existing file

<filesize>
modified <date> and <time>

with this one?

<filesize>
modified <date> and <time>"

If I select Yes, the second email will overwrite the original one; if I
choose No, the second one will not be moved to the desktop.

However, this seems to be a normal behavior in Windows. Let's take the
following scenario for example: There is a test.txt file existed in
folder_1 and another test.txt file in folder_2. If we cut or copy the
text.txt in folder_1 and then paste it into folder_2, we will be prompted
with the "This folder already contains a file named 'test.txt'¡­" dialog as
described as above and we can choose Yes or No to overwrite or cancel the
pasting. When we move an email from Outlook to Windows, it behaves as the
same way as this.

To workaround this behavior, we may need to rename the original .msg file
in the system before we can move another copy into this folder. Thank you
for your understanding.

Hope the information above addresses your concerns. If anything in my post
is unclear, feel free to let me know.

Have a good day!

Thanks & regards,

Winfred Weng
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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