Outlook for Mac error message: Rules could not be saved because there is an error in the rules.

Anonymous
2016-01-28T11:45:40+00:00

(Modifying the title to provide clarity)

I have edited multiple rules in Outlook for Mac and when trying to save the changes I get this error message:

"Rules could not be saved because there is an error in the rules. Edit the rules, and then try to save the rules again."

What? I mean WHAT???

Firstly, I have edited the rules in your UI and clicked OK after each edit, how can there be an error?? Why did you not check for errors when I pressed the OK button? How is it even possible that your UI lets me create a rule with an error, it is not a programming language, it is a user interface!

Secondly, what an ignorant unhelpful error message is this? What is the error? In which rule it is? How do I fix it? The message could have equally read "F... YOU!", it would be equally unhelpful and rude!

Not only did I have to abandon all the changes I made, you have also ruined my day!

I HATE YOU TOO MICROSOFT!!!

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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Anonymous
2017-01-06T18:14:19+00:00

A common cause of these rule errors is a bad email address in one of the rules (possibly a typo) or an invalid folder name (possibly deleted or renamed?).  Please check the most recent rule(s) you created and edited to see if all parameters are currently valid.  You can also narrow down the specific rule by selectively removing/re-adding individual rules.  Unfortunately, all rules are sent to the server in one transaction, and Outlook currently does not have code to identify and display the specific rule that failed. We've logged that as a future improvement.

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Anonymous
2017-09-11T06:38:22+00:00

This is really a problem solver!

With outlook log trace opened, I found there are multiple RuleOperationError when synchronizing with exchange server.

For example:

<OperationIndex>24</OperationIndex><ValidationErrors><Error><FieldURI>Condition:SentToAddresses</FieldURI><ErrorCode>InvalidAddress</ErrorCode><ErrorMessage>invalid email address</ErrorMessage><FieldValue>SMTP:</FieldValue></Error></ValidationErrors>

the OperationIndex tag should be started from 0, so 24 means the 25th rule in the rule box.

For me, there is a outdated mail-group in SendToAddress condition.

After removed these invalid rules, the whole rule set worked again!

Hope that microsoft(outlook) fix this issue with the accurate invalid rule tips, cause not everyone can understand these debug stuff!

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-07-18T23:51:10+00:00

    The log file is recreated every time you launch Outlook.  If you have 33MB log file, it means it reached its maximum size and stopped logging.  When you quit and relaunch Outlook, it will start a new log file.  Also note, I've found that sometimes the Mac Finder/OS caches the directory view, so it may be showing stale log file info (size, last mod date).

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-07-18T23:26:31+00:00

    Thank you.

    I do have a log file in that location but it is timestamped yesterday afternoon. The error occurred this morning.

    Regardless I searched for that keyword and it was not found (but again, that seems reasonable if the timestamp is to be trusted).

    I quit outlook just in case that is archived from some other temp file, but nope, still timestamped from yesterday afternoon (and it is 33Mb).

    Sigh.

    Anyway, I'm wondering if this happened when I deleted a rule on my Mac.

    I've been making changes w/o an issue for a while although I do usually only do them one by one.

    But today I decided to make some changes like to the rule names to organize easier and modified multiple. In doing so I noticed a couple that were unnecessary and deleted them. This is the first time I've changed multiple as well as deleted one or more so I'm thinking it was one of those two operations (or both combined?) that made it start showing the error.

    Obviously with this issue present, in any case, you should only do a couple at a time otherwise you risk losing the time to do that work plus the time to figure out which one is "bad". In all honesty, I don't think there actually is a "bad" one per se. All these rules were fine before so as I mentioned I think it is a multiple edit or deletion(s) that cause it (at least for me).

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-07-18T20:33:33+00:00

    Where is the log file you mention found on the mac?!

    /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Outlook/Data/Library/Caches/Microsoft/uls/com.microsoft.Outlook/logs

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