"Move to" attached files to a message instead of moving files

[Karen_PA]

My father deleted the contents of his inbox (1300 messages) after collapsing
all of the "by date" sorting and not realizing his messages were contained
under those headers. He called me asking how to move his items back to the
inbox and I had him do an Edit, Select All, Move To Folder and select Inbox.
Instead of moving the items, Outlook attached all 1300 messages to a single
e-mail and consequently removed them from his deleted items. I was able to
replicate this on my own computer and the same thing happened. We have
saved this e-mail in drafts so we don't lose the attached messages.

Oddly, his system is not allowing a drag and drop of the attached messages
from the e-mail to the inbox. The only method we have been able to figure
out is opening each attachment and saving a copy to the inbox. Obviously
with 1300 messages this is not ideal.

Does anyone have suggestions on why this happened and what we might do to
avoid a labor intensive process of copying each email individually back to
the inbox? Unfortunately, he does not have a back up we can restore to.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

if he closes outlook, can he drag them to the folder once he reopens it?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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[Karen_PA]

Thank you for responding. I am assuming this does not make a difference
because this happened Thursday morning, he shut down the computer and I took
a look at it last night, from a fresh boot. I wonder if it would make a
difference having him move the message to the inbox from the drafts folder?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

I don't think the folder matters, but its worth a try.

There is an issue similar to this problem (can't drag messages to folders as
messages - you get attachments) but it works when outlook is restarted, as
long as you don't open one of the messages until they are back in outlook.
(I'm assuming that he is just trying to drag and drop, not opening them
first.)

Hmm... how about a program (or VBA) that saves attachments to the hard
drive - then dragging them back to the folder? Save Attachments should work
too... There is a long list of utilities here:
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/attachments.asp and VBA sample here:
http://www.outlook-tips.net/code/saveatt2.htm. I would probably spring for
an add-in as they will add (x) to the file names if there are duplicates.

As long as he doesn't open the messages from the hard drive (see above),
they should drop into the folder as messages.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
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[Karen_PA]

Thank you very much for the add-ins recommendation. I will have a look and
respond to the post once I have come up with a solution.