Having access to all your mails on Outlook is meant to be normal as it helps you to locate important information. However, it becomes frustrating when the "Sent" folder of your Outlook gets missing or inaccessible.
In this article, you will learn four major tips you can employ in fixing this problem of sent folders missing. They are practical measures that you can rely on, even if you are not a tech expert. So, get on with it!
What to Do When Outlook Sent Folder Gets Missing
So you open your Outlook and your sent folder is missing! What do you do? First, you need to calm down, then try the tips discussed below and you can be certain that one of them will successfully fix the problem at hand.
Tip 1: Enable Saving Sent Items
The first tip is to ensure that you tick the "checkbox" for saved copies of "Sent Items" folder messages. This means that you have to enable the option to always save a copy of any message you send, in the folder for sent items.
To enable this checkbox, follow the steps below:
Step 1. Click on "File" > "Options"
Step 2. Choose "Mail"
Step 3. Go down to the section marked "Save messages". Ensure you check the checkbox near "Save copies of messages in the Sent Items Folder"
Step 4. Click "OK" to finish.
Tip 2: Disabling Cached Mode
The Cached Mode is one of two modes through which you can connect Outlook to your Exchange account, the other being Online Mode. The Cached Mode enables you to access emails and make changes even when you are not online since they are locally saved on your hard drive as OST files. As great as it sounds, the Cached Mode may need to be disabled if you are to gain access to your sent folder. This is because it requires a larger disk space when compared to the Online Mode. More importantly, the reason you cannot perform a search in your emails is because of the Cached Mode.
Thus, follow the steps below to disable cached exchange mode and use the online mode to see if you can find your missing sent folder:
Step 1. Go to the dialog box for "Account Settings". To access this,
For Outlook 2010 and 2013, follow the path: "File" > "Info" > "Account Settings" > "Account Settings".
However, if you are using Outlook 2007, go to "Tools" > "Account Settings"
Step 2. Now that you are in the dialog box of "Account Settings", you can choose the exchange account whose cached mode you want to disable. Once you do this, go under the "Email" tab and select "Change".
Step 3. A dialog box for "Change Account" will appear. Go to the box named "Use Cached Exchange Mode" and click to remove the "check" sign.
Step 4. Click the "Next" option.
Step 5. You will see a pop-up "Microsoft Outlook" dialog box again, choose "OK".
Step 6. Start Outlook again so that all your changes will be applied.
Tip 3: Repairing the Outlook Profile
You may need to perform a repair of your Outlook profile to retrieve the missing sent folders. To achieve this, you can either use Outlook's inbox repair tool or use a professional repair tool such as the Stellar Outlook Repair tool. The use of both options will be discussed below:
1. Scanpst Tool
This is also called Outlook's Inbox Repair Tool. It is important for manual repair of any issues facing your Outlook profile. Once there is corruption involving this .pst, then Outlook generates errors, one of which is the missing sent folder. Scanpst is an already-installed part of your Outlook, hence, all you need to do is to locate it on your Outlook version, follow the steps below, and repair your corrupt Outlook file:
Locate the .pst file you need to scan for repair. For Outlook 2007 and earlier versions, the default PST location is:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
For Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and Office 365, follow this path:
C:\Users\%username%\Documetns\Outlook Files\
Now, click the "Start" button to enable the repair tool to scan the location. The length of time Scanpst will take to do this analysis depends on how large the folder size is
You will be presented with a report on the nature of the error and the extent of corruption responsible for your sent folder being inaccessible. You can click on "Details" if you wish to get more information on this.
Move on to repair. However, ensure you back up all your important PST files before clicking on "Repair".
>Once the repair is completed, select "OK", then close Outlook and restart it.
2. Stellar Outlook Repair Tool
Scanpst is limited in certain ways, which makes it necessary for you to employ the use of a third-party repair software to fix your corrupt Outlook PST files. The Stellar Outlook Repair tool is such a software that can exceed the limitations of Scanpst as it repairs severely corrupted PST files, it recovers items that have been deleted or are missing and the repair process is easy and straightforward. Meanwhile, with Scanpst, you may need to carry out the repair process several times to get your desired result, a process that can be lengthy.
Having established the need for the Stellar Repair tool for Outlook, you can now download, launch it and follow these steps to repair your corrupt Outlook profile:
Step 1 Add Corrupt File
Add the corrupt .pst file onto the interface of Stellar Repair for Outlook by using the options "Find" or "Browse". These options will lead you to the location of the corrupt PST file
Step 2 Repair File
Click the "Repair" button in the mini window on the interface to begin the repair of your Outlook files. You will see a progress window on the interface.
Step 3 Preview and Save File
Here, you have the option of viewing the repaired Outlook files. The files are displayed in the preview window as follows: the list of files on the left pane, content in the middle, and details on the right.
Once you are satisfied with the content of your repaired and recovered files, just click on "Save Repaired File" on the "Home" menu.
Tip 4: Recreating the Outlook Profile
The final tip is to create a new profile for Outlook, completely starting afresh. To do this, follow the steps below:
Step 1. Close Outlook. Next, launch "Control Panel" and from the list under "View by:", choose "Large icons"
Step 2. Choose the icon representing "Mail (32-bit) and from here, select "Show Profiles…"
Step 3. Choose to "Add…" a new profile, then give your new profile a name of your choice. Set it up by following the prompts that appear.
Step 4. Go to "Always use this profile" and under this tab, choose your new profile from the list, as the default.
Step 5. Re-open Outlook. Note that restarting may take a while on the Desktop Client because of the fresh downloads that are done as a necessity for your newly created profile.
The Bottom Line
With the tips explained above, you should be able to fix the problem of your Outlook Sent Folder Missing. If one solution does not work for your peculiar case, another will. So, don't give up until you have tried it all.