Indiana University
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Moving messages

In Microsoft Outlook, to move messages from one folder to another, you can use either the menus or your mouse to drag messages into another folder.

Using the menus

  1. Select the message(s) you would like to move.

  2. In Outlook 2010, in the Ribbon, from the Home tab, click Move. Then select Choose Other Folder. Alternatively, to leave a copy of the message in the original folder, click Copy to Folder.

    In earlier versions, from the Edit menu, select Move to Folder.... Alternatively, to leave a copy of the message in the original folder, from the Edit menu, select Copy to Folder....

  3. In the window that opens, navigate to the folder in which you want to place the message, and click OK. The message you selected will now appear in the folder you chose.

Moving messages with the mouse

To drag the messages to a different file, you must be able to see both a list of folders in the left pane and a list of messages in the right pane of the window. If you see only one list, from the View menu, select Folder List. You should now be able to see both folders and messages.

Using the mouse, you can drag messages from the right pane into a folder in the left pane. You can select multiple, non-contiguous messages by pressing Ctrl while clicking several messages. To select a range of contiguous messages, click to highlight the first one, and then press Shift while clicking the last message in the range. Once multiple messages are selected, you can drag one of them to a folder in the left pane, and all selected messages will follow.

In Windows, you can drag the message with the right mouse button rather than with the left. When you drop the message into the target folder, you can choose whether to move or copy the message.