Many people have been getting this error message when trying to send an email in Outlook 2013 that has been auto-saved: "The operation cannot be performed because the message has been changed." This is a well-known problem. Is there a fix?

Thanks.

Hi,

I did a test on my own Outlook 2013, I created a message and waited to let Outlook auto-save it, then sent the email without this error.

Kindly let me know what type of account you are using? Exchange, IMAP or POP? I've seen some similar issues are with IMAP accounts. If it is IMAP accounts in your scenario, please go to FILE -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> Double click the IMAP account -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK. This has helped some users.

We can also disable the anti-virus program to test if this issue persists, since sometimes the email scanner may be interfering with this.

Regards,

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Support

• Marked as answer by Melon Chen CHNMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, July 21, 2014 12:43 PM

Hi,

I did a test on my own Outlook 2013, I created a message and waited to let Outlook auto-save it, then sent the email without this error.

Kindly let me know what type of account you are using? Exchange, IMAP or POP? I've seen some similar issues are with IMAP accounts. If it is IMAP accounts in your scenario, please go to FILE -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> Double click the IMAP account -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK. This has helped some users.

We can also disable the anti-virus program to test if this issue persists, since sometimes the email scanner may be interfering with this.

Regards,

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Support

• Marked as answer by Melon Chen CHNMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, July 21, 2014 12:43 PM

Thank you - This appears to have corrected my problem

Ten days ago I installed the latest Outlook 2013 / Office 365 download  on a new Lenovo Z40 Windows 8.1 PC - it has been a series of failures -

* Outlook gives the message: "The operation cannot be performed because the message has been changed" - and then goes slow - so I sometimes lose drafts that I've worked on - and other times have to copy to new emails.

I read your email and made the change to Root folder path ... and then -

* Outlook crashed, and deleted an entire folder off my IMAP server...  Causing me to lose some emails.  So I undid your recommended change.

* In addition, now Outlook gives the message: "This item is no longer valid because the message has been closed" - so I sometimes lose drafts that I've worked on - and other times have to copy to new emails.

I regularly run Windows Update and haven't seen any updates for Outlook - even though I see the IMAP bug is months old - what am I missing?

I recently bought a new PC with Outlook 13, and I get this problem every time I leave an e-mail for a bit and then try to send it later - even just an hour means I can't either send it or save it. This is very annoying indeed, and never happened on previous versions of Outlook which I have been using for many many years. Microsoft, what have you done - and when will you fix it? I don't dare try the fix you suggest above due to the impact on RichardL33...

From Google, it is immediately clear that many people have this problem.

Help!

I tried this with Office 365 and now I cannot delete a message and I have folders missing.  When I try to delete a message I get a message that says it is already deleted.  I also do not understand why the problem with sending a message and getting a message that it can't be sent because it has been changed has not been fixed.

This did not help me. I am on a Surface Pro, Win 8.1 and the Office 2013 ver 15.046. 

I have three IMAP accounts feeding emails into my inbox.

I can open and read emails or mark them as read without opening them. When I go to move some into a folder (to categorize my read emails), I get this message. I usually can then move all the emails below the first read one and they will move okay. I can then move the one that was at the top of that set of emails, into the same folder, with no problem. So, in other words, I can't move the full set together but can move them in two batches (all of the list except the first, then the first). This is clearly an OUTLOOK issue related to IMAP accounts. THIS NEEDS MICROSOFT'S ATTENTION, PLEASE.

I have been getting his error message recently.  I purchased a standalone Outlook 2013 last year, which runs on my Windows 7 64 bit PC.  In July my wife bought a laptop, which is on our LAN, and Office 365.  Maybe the messages started then, I cannot be sure.  It displays during conditions mentioned by the other people posting here.  Today I got the message after reading an e-mail and attempting to store it directly in an Outlook folder before closing it no replying, no editing, no extended delay.  I did click on a link in it to view a commercial web page.  I then closed the message and attempted to store it with the result being the display of the error message.  I always have the latest updates installed automatically.

The above was on 9/9/2014.  On 9/10/2014 I opened a commercial e-mail and clicked to have the graphics downloaded.  I then closed the e-mail and was prompted if I wanted to keep the changes.  I selected yes and then the message displayed that says the e-mail could not be saved because it had been changed.  I opened the e-mail again to get the wording of the first prompt and found that the graphics had been saved and there was no prompt.  I then closed the e-mail and noticed that now there were two copies of it in the inbox.  I believe this is not the designed behavior of Outlook.  A fix is needed. 

• Edited by Gordon2021 Wednesday, September 10, 2014 8:33 PM

I have been getting his error message recently.  I purchased a standalone Outlook 2013 last year, which runs on my Windows 7 64 bit PC.  In July my wife bought a laptop, which is on our LAN, and Office 365.  Maybe the messages started then, I cannot be sure.  It displays during conditions mentioned by the other people posting here.  Today I got the message after reading an e-mail and attempting to store it directly in an Outlook folder before closing it no replying, no editing, no extended delay.  I did click on a link in it to view a commercial web page.  I then closed the message and attempted to store it with the result being the display of the error message.  I always have the latest updates installed automatically.

The above was on 9/9/2014.  On 9/10/2014 I opened a commercial e-mail and clicked to have the graphics downloaded.  I then closed the e-mail and was prompted if I wanted to keep the changes.  I selected yes and then the message displayed that says the e-mail could not be saved because it had been changed.  I opened the e-mail again to get the wording of the first prompt and found that the graphics had been saved and there was no prompt.  I then closed the e-mail and noticed that now there were two copies of it in the inbox.  I believe this is not the designed behavior of Outlook.  A fix is needed. 

• Edited by Gordon2021 Wednesday, September 10, 2014 8:33 PM

I agree - a fix is needed.  This just started happening to me about 3 weeks ago.  I have Office 365 on a 64-bit Win7 machine.  I upgraded to Win 365 a few months ago and everything was fine with Outlook until this started happening a few weeks ago.  It's really irritating and a productivity sync.

I was able to fix this error by typing Inbox in the "Root folder path" and changing the Conversation Clean up option to allow the original message to be moved when the reply was modified.

Step 1 Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail tab -> Change -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK.

Step 2 File -> Options -> Mail -> Under "Conversation Clean Up" Uncheck "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" -> OK.

• Proposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:20 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:20 PM
• Proposed as answer by IanHep Thursday, January 15, 2015 8:58 AM

I was able to fix this error by typing Inbox in the "Root folder path" and changing the Conversation Clean up option to allow the original message to be moved when the reply was modified.

Step 1 Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail tab -> Change -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Under "Folders", type "Inbox" in the blank box of "Root folder path" -> OK.

Step 2 File -> Options -> Mail -> Under "Conversation Clean Up" Uncheck "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" -> OK.

• Proposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:20 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:20 PM
• Proposed as answer by IanHep Thursday, January 15, 2015 8:58 AM

That doesn't work for me.  It's been getting worse and worse, now today I can't use Outlook.  So back to Thunderbird.  Sad that Microsoft hasn't fixed IMAP.

• Proposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:08 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:08 PM

That doesn't work for me.  It's been getting worse and worse, now today I can't use Outlook.  So back to Thunderbird.  Sad that Microsoft hasn't fixed IMAP.

• Proposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:08 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Simon Fullalove Monday, October 06, 2014 5:08 PM

I have found I can move the final item by switching off the reading pane then switching it back on again. 

I don't know if this will work for all, but I copied the email I was trying to reply to onto my desktop.  From the desktop I reopened the message and I was able to send without getting that nasty message!  

Hi Melon,

I tried the change you have suggested and ALL of my folders in that account disappeared from Outlook.
I removed this change and set "Root folder path" back to empty and all the folders re-appeared again.

So this is NO fix as the side effect of this is much worse than the problem it is trying to solve.

The IMAP support in Outlook is embarrassingly bad!

Regards,
Simon

Hi, I am consistently getting this message when I open an email from the Inbox to read it, then close it (without making any 'changes'), and then try to move it to a folder. A way around this is to re-open the email and 'save' it. This gives a different message 'This item cannot be saved because it has been changed by another user' (So??) 'Do you want to make a copy in the default folder?'.  I reply 'Yes'. I then have 2 copies of the email.  I delete he original and can file the copy.  NB I am accessing a Gmail account via Outlook using IMAP.   I will try the folder 'Advanced' (Root Folder Path = Inbox) solution suggested, but I note that one user in this chain had problems with folders disappearing with this solution  . . . .

OK tried the 'Root folder path = Inbox' suggestion and, yes, all my filing folders disappeared, so NOT RECOMMENDED. Fortunately they re-appeared when I blanked the field out again!

• Edited by Nick1302 Wednesday, December 03, 2014 9:50 AM

Hi, I am consistently getting this message when I open an email from the Inbox to read it, then close it (without making any 'changes'), and then try to move it to a folder. A way around this is to re-open the email and 'save' it. This gives a different message 'This item cannot be saved because it has been changed by another user' (So??) 'Do you want to make a copy in the default folder?'.  I reply 'Yes'. I then have 2 copies of the email.  I delete he original and can file the copy.  NB I am accessing a Gmail account via Outlook using IMAP.   I will try the folder 'Advanced' (Root Folder Path = Inbox) solution suggested, but I note that one user in this chain had problems with folders disappearing with this solution  . . . .

OK tried the 'Root folder path = Inbox' suggestion and, yes, all my filing folders disappeared, so NOT RECOMMENDED. Fortunately they re-appeared when I blanked the field out again!

• Edited by Nick1302 Wednesday, December 03, 2014 9:50 AM

Thank you Simon!!

Option 2 (Conversation Clean-up) worked immediately for me.

My problem was the version arising when I tried to move certain messages from my Inbox to another folder.

Ian

I was able to fix the problem by unchecking ALL boxes under "conversation cleanup" section. The one you mentioned, "When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original" - was not enough in my situation. Thanks for leading me to the right place!!

I just started using Office 365 instead of reinstalling via my DVD, and this suggestion helped me with this problem, and allows me to ignore rebuilding my entire index for 4 drives, which was another suggested solution!

This helped me. Thanks

The path you gave does not exist on my Outlook 2013 (Office 365). Under File, there is no "Account settings." There is "office account," but no settings there either. What is the path I need for the 365 Outlook 2013, to fix this annoying problem of "item cannot be saved because it was changed by another user"?

I tried this and it only helped on one account. 

Another factor seems to be if the inbox has changed because the email address has been saved to favourites to get it to the top of the list for ease of use. 

Also I have some that are IMAP and others pop, seems there is no difference, I feel the problem is with Outlook 2013 and needs a patch made PLEASE! my inbox is overflowing and I cant move to folders. I can reply and send but not move and its random, some will but most wont.

When you find a solution, can you send us all an email?

cheers 

Willow10

I agree, but cannot move multiples at the same time. 

When I highlighted 6 emails and pressed delete, it deleted 4657 that had just come in with new installation. GREAT!

this IS a MICROSOFT ISSUE and needs their immediate attention.... after all aus Post is all bar out of business and this IS our business eithic now. Come on guys...!!!!!!

Step 2 is a brilliant suggestion - it works on pop but not on IMAP - back tot he drawing board, but thanks.

Hello Microsoft, This issue has been going on for a YEAR and a HALF now.

I never had this issue using Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010.

I using Outlook 2013 on a routine IMAP server.

The other related stupid thing that Outlook 2013 does is that it won't allow you to set the Flag if the message changes from Unread to Read while you have the message selected. You have to select another message, then re-select the message (now Unread, and no status change) then you can set the Flag.

I've tried all the suggestions in this forum and the answers forum. None of them work for me: The Inbox folder/root path thing, the DLLs, disabling COM Add-Ins, Safe Mode.

Office 2013 is not worth the upgrade and I can't recommend it.

I do not have this issue using eM Client.

It's September and still no fix. I tried the Root "Inbox" solution and like the others, folders disappeared. Fortunately they reappeared when I blanked out the "Root" field.

I'm running 2013 on Win 10 and for the past year have had problems with sending replies and filing messages in folders. Here are the workarounds I've been using:

For filing messages - If I am viewing messages and decide to move one from the inbox to a pst folder I often get the "message changed" error. I find that if I then click on any other message in the inbox and then click back on the one I want to move, the move will perform properly. Apparently, the first click on the message changed the "read" attribute and that's detected as a change. The second click must reset the change attribute and allows me to move the message.

For replies - If I start to reply to a message and wait too long (enough for an autosave) and then try to send the reply I get the error message. When that happens I copy my reply text, close the reply message without saving it, start another reply to the same original message and paste the copied text back in. Since it had no time to autosave it properly sends the reply.

You don't even want to get me started on the annoyance of this and the quirky "lost" reply drafts if I have to alt-tab to another application to get information while doing a in-line reply. But maybe these tips will help others who aren't ready to dump Outlook.

Thank you, this worked for me.