How to clear all IMAP Folders in Outlook with Filters Applied

| March 7, 2015

How to clear all Folders in Outlook with Filters Applied

As an Outlook Expert and Microsoft Office 365 consultant, I get asked to fix a lot of odd issues. Like the one this blog is based on. IMAP and Outlook 2013 brings mail into filters and hides them, making them not export correctly. A filter is applied, sure it’s not a big deal to clear some filters, but what if it’s hundreds of folders with filters? UGH, nightmare!

Before you read further, please take note of one important thing. If you use Gmail in Outlook and are on IMAP, it’s possible that your contacts and calendar entries in Outlook are in a “cached” OST file in your computer. Most backup programs do not back up this file by default, you must select the directory it’s being stored.  An OST file cannot be imported into Outlook. OST files need to be converted to PST files in order to be opened in Outlook again. I have found many clients with years of data in these very unsafe OST files. If you want my help moving your entries to a safe PST file, we can schedule an appointment.

I hope this is the post you’ve been searching for folks!  This is the holy grail of the dreaded “Filter Applied” issue when downloading email from IMAP/Gmail into Outlook 2013.  After you setup your new IMAP, you might find that your email folders have “Filter Applied” at the bottom left, when it should be showing the number of emails in that folder. Right? And if you have many many folders in that IMAP mailbox, this is a tedious task to remove the filter one by one. Many resources on the internet show you how to do with the “change the view” but still you can only do it one by one.


 

 

  1. Click on the inbox at the top of the mailbox.
  2. Then down below in the lower left corner of Outlook, double click “Filter applied”
  3. A box will pop up and click on the bottom right area, “Clear all”
  4. Now that inbox filter will be cleared, you should now see all the email and the total of number of emails instead of “Filter Applied” in that one folder.
  5. Next go to the top of Outlook and click on “View”
  6. Now scroll over to “Change view” and at the bottom you will see “Apply current view to other mail folders”
  7. Now an “Apply View” box will pop up, keep the mailbox checked and at the bottom click “Apply view to sub-folders”
  8. You might need to check the box for “Inbox” first, depends…
  9. Now you should see every folder lifted of the danged “Filter Applied” issue

 

Feel free to leave a comment if this blog helped you! I am enjoying reading and replying to them.

 

 




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Category: Outlook Support

About the Author ()

Lisa Hendrickson is the owner of Call That Girl. She is an Outlook Expert and Microsoft 365 Consultant.

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